I’m changing the scenery for a week or so. A friend of mine is off to the Big Chill and I’m looking after his dogs for a few days. I looked after them last year, but it was only Bubba & Otti back then. Otti had puppies a few weeks ago – 8 of the little buggers so looking after them is going to be the main thing I’ll be doing.

I’ve installed Tia the cat in my girlfriend’s place in Les Houches to give her a bit of a holiday too and locked up the office for a week. Chamonix is so busy with tourists at the moment, it’s going to be great to live in peace and quiet up in the mountains for a little while.

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Paleo 2008 – A little more from Chris D on Vimeo.

The film’s starting to take shape now, with some soundtrack from the live Massive Attack gig and also some music from Thomas Dutronc from the albumn Comme un manouche sans guitare

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What a great weekend that was. The Paleo festival on Friday night was great. There was loads of cool music that I’d never heard of before, loads of delicious food from all over the world. I did manage to loose my shoes though. Massive Attack were god, but blimey…. a bit dark. I’ve grown up listening to Massive Attack. When we had cassettes I had their music on cassette. Then I hadCD’s of their albums and now MP3, but weirdly I never even knew that they are a proper guitar band. I’m such a musical numpty.

Anyway, after camping at the festival we stopped in at my great friends Ryan and Sarah who live near Geneva on the way home. And barbecued a whole, peri-peri marinated chicken. He’s from Zimbabwe, my mate & he knows how to do a barbecue. First you need a good, weber BBQ. Then build a smallish hot coal fire on one side of the thing. When it’s nice and hot, put your whole, marinated chicken on the grill on the side away from the hot coals, put the lid on and wait. Baste the thing and turning it round to make sure it cooks through evenly and in a couple of hours (or around the same time as you would from an oven), you’ll have an amazingly delicious roast BBQ chicken.

Anyway – here’s the first sequence from the Paleo film I’m making… just 17 seconds so far, but it’s showing some promise.

Paleo 2008 Quality Test from Chris D on Vimeo.

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It’s Paleo time again. We managed to get some tickets for tonight – for Massive Attack’s headline set. I loved Paleo last year. It was the highlight of a summer that wasn’t otherwise going particularly well. It’s like a music festival, but different. Because it’s in Switzerland. This means it works properly. There’s plenty of parking, the camping is free and there are cash machines that don’t run out of money all over the place. This summer I’m feeling on top of the world, and I’ve been looking forward to this trip, not daring to believe that my girlfriend and I would be a) both in the valley at the right date, and b) be able to get hold of a ticket. But we have, and we’re off to Nyon!

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For some reason I’ve suddenly started to speak far more French with people. I’ve even got some genuine French mates with whom I only speak it. I’m not sure what has happened, but suddenly the fear of getting things wrong or not knowing the words has gone and I’m far happier to just give it a go and chat away. As it turns out, my accent is not completely terrible, and better still it’s not immediately identifiable as an English accent. It’s obvious I’m not French of course, but my quest to become eurotrash is progressing well.

Having said that, though I do still speak French comme une vache espagnole. Which is a not very polite way of saying not very well. Literally translated it means ‘like a spanish cow.’

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Should the two piece bathing suit be banned by law for anyone over 50? Here’s an argument to the contrary.

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My blog posts aren’t exactly coming thick and fast at the moment, so how about a pithy one liner that you can quote down the pub?

“I don’t believe in randomness. It is simply a useful way of describing a pattern that’s too big to hold in our heads.”

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I’ve spent the last few days in front of my computer, working. But on the computer to the right of me I’ve been playing the entire 1st & second series of Lost. I’m downloading the third series you see, so it seemed reasonable to re-watch the first two while they’re bit-torrenting. But I think watching 30+ hours of back to back Lost episodes topped off with Alex Garland’s The Beach has messed with my head.

I want to be on a deserted island. When I was a small boy I’d always take a matchbox full of string, fish hooks and matches dipped in wax (to keep them dry) whenever I flew on an airoplane. I wasn’t just being a good boy scout. I actually WANTED the plane to crash so I could live on a deserted island like Robinson Crusoe (the first real, grown up book I ever read).

And at the moment, here in Chamonix, I want it more than ever. It’s just so damn busy out in town. Tourist-tastic. All I want to do is walk up to the supermarket and I have to compete with thousands of people moving too damn slowly and getting in my way. you wouldn’t get that on a deserted island.

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The blog posts haven’t been so regular here for the past few weeks. I’ve been slowly going a little manic, and I seem to censor myself when that happens. Nothing too serious. Not like last summer. But I’ve been slowly drinking booze more and more often and in greater quantities, smoking more cigarettes and not getting any decent work done. Generally doing myself no good at all.

It’s a bit like the proverbial frog in boiling water; Put a frog in a saucepan of boiling water and he’ll leap straight put, but put him in a saucepan of luke warm water and slowly bring it to the boil & he’ll sit there until he boils to death. With a little bit of helpful advice from a very good friend of mine, I realised the water’s getting a bit hot & it’s time to get out.

So I’m straightening myself out this week. No drink, no cigarettes, plenty of sleep, good food. Just winding my neck in a bit and getting back under control. After several days of this I’m starting to feel much straighter. Also, something I do every so often when I need to reconnect with my working life – I’m re-reading Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. I first read it when I was starting out in my career in computers and even though it was written in 1995 and already out of date in terms of technology, somehow it connected me to the industry I work in and more to the point, the reason I want to work in it. It’s the one-point-oh mentality. Doing something cool for the first time. Being on the edge of a fast changing culture, and that never changes. Here’s an extract; Written 13 years ago, it still strikes chords with me.

Ethan: “Prozac is great – and I think it goes beyond serotonin an uptake receptors and that kind of thing. I think these chemicals physically rewire your brain to think in parallel. It literally converts your brain from Mactintosh or IBM into a Cray C3 or a Thinking Machines CM5. Prozac-type chemicals don’t suppress feelings, they break them down into smaller “feeling units” which are more quickly computationally processed by the new, parallel brain.”

Dan: “I think I need a second to digest this Eth….”

Ethan: “I don’t. Linear thinking is out. Parallel is in”

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I haven’t been up the mountain since the closing day of the ski season & that was months ago. So it felt quite good to be in the Prarion cable car in Les Houches with my mate and a couple of mountain bikes. It’s the first time I’ve done this – downhill mountain biking and I was definitely feeling that I should have some more body armour on. I had my ski helmet on, but my shins and arms felt very exposed to getting chopped up by the spiky metal mountain bike shaking underneath me as I careered down the tracks at speeds which meant stopping without crashing wasn’t something you could rely on.

Sure enough I did fall off the damn thing a few times – and today I’m covered in bruises and scrapes. It’s fun though – I reckon I could definitely do it more. But I’m going to get myself armoured up next time.

more pics


A run down from the Prarion lift in Les Houches takes about 30-45 mins depending on how long you spend picking your bike up out of the bushes . We were back at the van at about 4pm, just in time for me to meet up with the mountaingirl at Gaylands to go climbing for a couple of hours of easy climbing.

I was knackered but happy by the end of the day – finally getting back into doing some sports after getting a out of the habit for the last few months.

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