Jun/070
All the news that’s new and approved
One of the best things about quitting your day job is the ability to take Fridays off if you feel like it. I felt like it today. Got up late, put a load of washing on and went up to town to have coffee and breakfast. Bisou'd a few friendly faces and read the Guardian with my bacon and egg baguette.
You need to get up to date with the news from time to time, and reading the Guardian in the sun outside Elevation is my favourite way of doing i. Online news simply won't do.
So for those of you stuck in 9to5ers (who aren't already at the pub) - here's the news that's new & approved by Listings Lab.
World News
The crazy Russians have this week laid claim to a huge chunk of the arctic. In a hilarious reminder to the rest of the world that the Ruskies are still out there and still have all the oil (Russia has the world's largest gas reserves and is the second largest exporter of oil after the Saudis), the Russians signalled their intent to annex a vast 460,000 square mile chunk of the arctic. Apparently some scientists have found a loophole in the laws governing this kind of thing and can proove that the Russian mainland is linked to the arctic by an underwater shelf. Doesn't matter that Canada could do exactly the same thing - they thought of it first and anyway, they only want a chunk.
When asked if drilling for oil were possible in a territory estimated to contain 10 Billion tonnes of gas and oil deposits, Mr Priamikov said.... 'Yes.'
A brilliantly bold democratic/capitalistic move that says to the west... 'Fine. Have Iraq. It's fucked anyway. We'll take the arctic where there are no mental people and we'll STILL be selling you your oil in 10 years time. Unless China can pay more.'
Obviously the reaction from the rest of the world will be along the lines of 'From our cold, dead, hands', but hey! Full marks for trying.
UK News
Finally! The BBC have nearly got the iplayer technology to market . I've been waiting for this innovation for a long time. After installing the (currently PC only) iplayer software, users will be able to download almost any programme from the previous 7 days and store and watch it for up to 30 days. The open beta launch will be on the 27th July, but we've seen a pre-release here at Listings Lab and we are confident that the BBC's claim that it's the biggest change to the way we watch television since the introduction of colour 40 years ago isn't going to be far from the mark.
Personal News
Today is my sister Caroline's last day at work. For the past 5 years she's worked in the city of London as a solicitor in several different top-notch law firms. The commitment and hours that must have gone into doing that, a lazy git like me can only imagine. Caroline has taken this blog's motto 'Quit your day job, go on I dare you' to heart and is quitting the city to travel a bit and start a new life with her husband to be in Germany. I'm sure all of us who know her wish her the best of luck, and say to her..... 'Nice one :)'
Jun/070
Lapse in concentration ruins day
Isn't it funny how a little lapse in concentration can really balls up your day? The day started pretty well. Nice and sunny, I was out the door on the way to the office in good time and knew exactly what I was going to work on once I got there. I parked the van and got out. Bang. With the clunk of the door I'd ruined my day.
The van has one small, but annoying problem. The driver's side door can't be opened from the outside the lock has broken. You can get out, but not in. So I always get in from the passenger side and climb across. When I park I lean across, lock the passenger side, grab the keys from the ignition and get out the driver's side door.
I didn't grab the keys. I was stood outside a locked van with the keys in the ignition. The office keys are also on the same keyring. In fact, the only way to get into the van is to get the spare set of keys from the apartment, 5 miles away. The keys to the apartment are obviously ALSO on the keyring, and the only other copy is with Sarah somewhere in Ireland.
So I'm sitting here, writing this in an Internet cafe, drinking coffee. Contemplating how quickly a day can go tits up, and wondering what on earth I'm going to do about it.
Jun/070
Shrinking Balls
My great friend Phil and I have taken trips together since we were kids. At school we surfed together, after school we've travelled, skied and hung out in bling spots all over the world, but for a while our sporting interests diverged a little. Phil spent a lot of time in South America mountaineering while I spent those years scuba diving.
With moving to Chamonix and the climbing/ski touring I'm doing we've decided it's time to do something together again. This summer we're going to try to achieve something Phil has had on his list for many years. The Matterhorn.
Climbing the Matterhorn is hard. It's high, it's cold, it's long, it's steep. It's a challenge. There are several possible routes up it, the main 2 choices being the Hornli Ridge and the Italian Ridge. The Italian is more difficult and more committing, but on the plus side, shorter and less crowded. It's the Italian Ridge we're thinking of doing.
The idea has been firming up since I saw Phil in Suffolk a few weeks ago. The last couple of emails we've exchanged have changed in tone from gung ho -'how hard can it be?' to 'right, let's actually do this'. A significant difference and one which has made me feel the first tang of fear.
We'll be doing some training. Neither of us are very experienced with this type of climbing (called Alpinism). There's all kind of technique to learn about; crampons, rope-work, self arrest. These are best NOT done for the first time half way up the Matterhorn. In addition there's fitness and acclimatization. My experience with altitude has taught me I don't react well to the thin air, so I'll be spending some time at the top of the Aiguille du Midi prior to to the climb. And it's probably a damn good time for me to stop smoking cigarettes too.
Jun/070
Jehovah’s Witnesses In A Nutshell
The first thing that happened today was a know on the door by two middle aged, french Jehovah's Witnesses. They seemed like nice ladies and I've been feeling a little lost and rudderless for a while, so I had a little read of their pamphlet (they were quite chuffed with having an English copy they could give me when I pretended not to know what the hell they were on about).
So here it is in a nutshell. The world's going to end pretty soon in a hideous Armageddon. Yep, they might be right there. If I submit to their doctrine and lead a righteous life then I needn't be scared because I get to live in a lovely new post-Armageddon world where there is no sickness, suffering and the dead will be resurrected. Sweet! I think they've got a point. It you do choose to live a completely insane life, then the stresses and fears of everyday modern living wouldn't bother you and you might well show all the symptoms of happiness.
Still fucking mentalists though aren't they? I'll choose my own way of coping thanks.
Anyway, so the pamphlet is obviously full of ridiculous religio-babble craziness and completely impenetrable, but I did quite like some of the pictures. And with a bit of scanner magic and modern flickr-izastion, I have compiled a short slide-show you can watch in 2 minutes that will give you good solid grounding in the Jehovah's Witness message and allow you to decide for yourself..... You can view it here, but make sure you click the info button in the middle to get the full message. Here's my favourite pic.....
Jun/070
Fete de la musique
It's the fete de la musique today. Summer solstice every year, all across France and many other European countries we have this festival. I was here for last years and it was a great night but it feels strange this year. Like summer hasn't really started properly and already it's the festival.
To be honest I'm not feeling much like partying tonight. A combination of staying out late drinking with Fred, Katy and Sarah last night and having taken Sarah to the airport in Geneva this afternoon. She's off to work at Glastonbury this weekend and will be away for another month or so working on other gigs.
Jun/071
The coolest technology I’ve seen for a while
I heard about slingmedia a few months back and to be honest it sounded a bit too good to be true. Basically, here's what it does. You get this little box and connect one end to your broadband connection and into the other end you feed in a television signal from a source like a freeview digi-box. The slingmedia technology then allows you to log into the box from anywhere in the world using some software installed on your laptop. You can then stream that television signal over the internet directly to your laptop, and watch your TV signal from wherever you are as long as you have a good, fast connection and the upload speed from the slingmedia box is pretty good too. Only one user can login to the slingmedia box at any one time, so you couldn't, for instance, install Sky TV and then sell access to it to your mates through their laptops (even if you could get round the bandwidth issues).
Sarah's brother has been using it from Austria for a while while he was here this weekend he's set Sarah up with the ability to watch UK television live on her laptop from here in France. I've seen it working and it DOES work. It's amazing. It can't help you with the fact that there's bugger all on TV worth watching of course..... but I did find myself watch Hugh Fernley-Wosshisname on More 4 late last night.
here's the blurb from the company itself....
"Slingbox is a compact and elegantly designed, state-of-the-art electronic device that connects to the back of your TV. It redirects, or "placeshifts" the TV signal from your cable box, satellite receiver, or personal video recorder (PVR) to your computer or laptop of choice, no matter your location - so long as you have a high-speed Internet connection. This utterly unique device will transform the way you watch TV. Whether you want to watch your soaps in the shower room, or catch the big game during a conference call, or watch your local news from China, the power is now in your hands."
Jun/070
Refugio Bonatti, Tour du Mont Blanc
Sarah's brother Andrew was in town this weekend. We went hiking in Italy on part of the Tour du Mont Blanc. The plan wa perfect. Leave the car in Courmayeur and walk up to the Rifugio Bonatti, staying in the hut overnight, walking back down the next day. Each way was probably just under 20km with a height difference of 1000m.
It was a really lovely 2 day hike. Much further than I'm used to walking, but I'm starting to see my fitness improving a lot just living here in the valley. We started around midday on the first day and reached the Bonatti hut around 5pm. It's the coolest place to stay ever, great views of the Massive Du Mont Blanc across the valley and for 40EUR you get a comfortable bed for the night, a shower, a 3 course dinner and a bit of breakfast before heading off again in the morning. After a couple of litres of red wine between us and a day walking up a mountain we were all asleep by 9:30pm with the noisy Italian's conversations ringing in our ears. Something about Italians - they're such lovely people, so friendly and happy but they just NEVER stop talking!
We were off again by 8:30 this morning. Taking a different route further up through the high mountain passes into beautiful empty valleys where there were still patches of snow here and there and blazing our own trail a bit before dropping back down onto the classic TMB route to the Bertoli hut for a coffee and then tackling the last tiring hour back down the steep path to the car in Courmayeur. We were back in town buying Italian Prosecco by 3pm.
Tired, but happy, it's time for a long hot bath and probably another early night. Photos, as usual are on flickr if you fancy seeing what theTMB looks like.
Jun/072
Facebook. The verdict.
Facebook. It's a phenomenon. I've been holding back from writing a post on it, waiting to get an opinion from Sarah. Sarah has a computer, uses Skype, shops on the web but has a very unusual attitude to the Internet world. Usually we are polarised into 2 groups - the techie, early adopters and technophobes who pick up on stuff like facebook. Sarah falls into a third category. A sophisticated citizen of the modern world who chooses not to be addicted.
So I finally demo'd the facebook website to her this morning. I showed how it works, what it does and how it grows. Her opinion?
"It's a waste of time. You could spend hours on that website when you could be outside doing fun stuff"
I could have blathered on for hours without nailing it so concisely. Turn off the TV and go and do something less boring instead.Facebook IS a waste of time. In exactly the same way that playing xbox for hours is a waste of time. That time spent in front of facebook would be better spent working on something useful, or if you've finished your work, get outside and go for a walk, go fishing, do some gardening - whatever floats your boat.
The interesting thing is why facebook is so addictive to those users who would normally sneer at wasting their time playing computer games, yet spend hours checking their profile and sending messages to people they barely know. It because using facebook feels like work. It feels like you're doing something useful, something sociable, something cool. You're actually being duped.
