[Photos posted 2007-06-04.]
Spent much of the afternoon pottering around taking photos of the back garden, the church, the graveyard and the castle. I was too lazy to join the hunter-gatherer trip to Dunnes in Kilkenny but those who did were kind enough to hunt-gather on my behalf, in exchange for coin of the realm. Well, paper of the European Union.
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
By the way, did I mention we'd been drinking?
 |
Some shots of the castle's interior. Alas, I failed to get a photo of Tim standing under the antlers.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Most people, Tim included, left over the course of the afternoon, to get evening flights back to the UK. This left a hard core of five Irishmen (Tiarnan, Keith, Ronie, James and Stephen) and me. Six is a very convenient number, being, as it is, the number of glasses of wine to be found in a bottle. As such, dinner (excellently cooked by Keith) was accompanied by a wonderful pipeline system, by which the currently open bottle of wine would be emptied into the waiting glasses and the next bottle opened, to allow it a little time to breathe while we drained our glasses. A while after dinner, the pipeline broke down as people started to drink at different rates but, hey, nothing lasts forever. Turns out that we had one bottle of wine left over, which was good: there's a serious danger that people think, ``Oh, we don't need to get any more wine -- there are only six of us and we've plenty of booze,'' leading to people drinking spirits from half-way through dinner. And it's very difficult to drink spirits slowly enough for a whole evening that you don't end up completely wasted.
[Last batch of photos posted 2007-06-28. Not sure who the guy on the left is.]
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Six people and six beds meant no more sleeping on the floor. I got the master bedroom, in the tower, with the four-poster bed. Woot!
I'd been a bit worried that it might be hard to get a lift back but the six people remaining had three cars and a motorbike between them. I got a lift from James. Roadsign of the week: ``Caution: Health Centre.'' I assume they mean that the pedestrians will be fitter than normal so you'll have to try harder to run them down.
Warm down session in a Dublin bar with Tiarnan and one of his pals from swing dancing. Three pints of Guinness seemed to be quite enough. I'm not sure if it was just coincidence but the one Guinness I asked for myself came with a shamrock drawn in the head and the two requested for me by Irish people didn't.
Tiarnan's very kindly given me his second copy of Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island. Dave's Book Club recommends.
Could I just point out to every airline check-in clerk on the planet that sticking my baggage claim tag on my passport is (1) really bloody stupid and (2) really bloody irritating? A good fraction of male passports live in back pockets, where the glue becomes all sticky and horrible. The baggage claim tag goes on the back of the boarding card. Are you listening, easyJet staff at Luton (serial offenders) and Swiss staff at Dublin? Thank you.
Also, I would respectfully suggest that Sky News is not the best choice for Dublin Airport's TV screens. As I recall, Ireland spent a certain amount of time fighting wars and shit for independence from the UK and Sky News is the most appallingly Anglo-centric news station I've ever seen. In about half an hour, they deviated from Gordon Brown, the captured British sailors and something else in the UK that I don't even recall for about two minutes, to mention that there's been a tsunami in the Solomon Islands and that the TGV hit five hundred and seventy-something kilometers and hour in trials. (When I got home, CNN were giving about equal coverage to each of the Iran thing, the tsunami, Yet Another Crappy Day in Iraq™, the political crisis in the Ukraine and Nancy Pelosi being in Syria.)
That said, I did get to eat a sandwich while sitting under one sign saying ``Bank of Scotland Ireland'' and opposite another advertising some kind of facial spray described as being ``Anti-Electromagnetic waves & Urban Pollution.'' Looked a bit expensive to buy as a joke, though.
We left ten minutes early and the captain proceeded to explain that this was good because we were going to be flying against a 170kph headwind for much of the way. This promised lots of turbulence but we were safe as, when the drinks trolley came past me, it didn't have any coffee. A little while later, one of the stewardesses came past on a totally superfluous rubbish-collecting mission, made all the more pointless by the fact that she didn't have a rubbish sack with her. So she collected as many empty cups and things in her hand as she could carry and then tripped and threw them all over the aisle.
Things I've found out about Switzerland.
We arrived in Athens a little late, landing on a runway I never knew existed, on the other side of the motorway. We then taxied the long way to the terminal, with people leaping out of their seats and being told to sit down every time the plane stopped. And then we sat at the gate for a good ten minutes. At least, I sat at the gate, reading Alistair Cooke; most of my fellow passengers had squeezed into the aisle to get at their luggage. I think the bus driver back into Athens might have been homicidally insane: he got us back to Syntagma in forty minutes flat, which is slightly faster than the Metro would have been.
Er, I'm back. Updates and photos will be posted in due course. Don't expect a blow-by-blow account of Tim's stag, though, as I wasn't taking notes and we did drink an awful lot. Indeed, the executive summary of most of the days would be, ``Got up around 11am, had brunch, pottered around for the afternoon, started drinking around 5pm, started talking the kind of crap one talks while getting amiably drunk, started sleeping around 3am.'' Nobody was ill, nobody got hurt (not even by falling down the spiral staircase, which would have been easy enough even when sober), nothing got broken (apart from two wine glasses). Fine way to spend an extended weekend, if you ask me. I'm working on ways to get Tim to get married more often.
For some reason, some publisher has sent me a flier for a journal which is ``Essential reading for applied philosophers, philosophical practitioners, counselors, ethicists, educators and mental health professionals.''
I'm becoming increasingly convinced that public transport in Athens operate a conspiracy rather than a service. Today, it took me over an hour and a quarter to get into the office, after just missing two Metro trains and a bus. After getting off the backup bus, I decided to wait five minutes for the campus bus rather than walk up the last part of the hill. That would have been only five minutes' walk but it was a hot, muggy day so I didn't bother. Of course, five minutes became ten and then I gave up, only to be passed by a public bus and a campus bus (both running late) within two minutes of setting off. On the up side, I did count twenty-five different types of wild flower during the walk.
Dinner at Alla's, then X-Men 3 on DVD. Does killing off half the characters mean there won't be any more? And then watched the news about the ferry that hit rocks off Santorini. Greek news programmes like to do crazy split-screen stuff where you get maybe four different people plus a general shot of what's happened. This doesn't seem very sensible to me as it inevitably means that there are at least two people on screen doing absolutely nothing but unable to relax because three million people will be watching if they picked their noses.
Alla also asked me to photograph her tulips, which sounds as if it might be dodgy but, to the best of my knowledge isn't. (This can be seen as a statement of my paranoia or naïveté, as appropriate). They're from the Netherlands, you know. And she has a trinket that isn't from the Netherlands.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
Good Friday but I was in the office anyway because the organizers of this year's Computer Science Logic conference decided that Easter Monday would be a good date for the submission deadline. Even with the best will in the world, everyone pushes these deadlines -- more than once, I've used the fact that the deadline was specified in an American timezone to my advantage. This conference has a separate, earlier deadline for submission of titles and abstracts, which gives them a bit of a head start finding referees. I submitted our (Anuj's and my) title and abstract a couple of days before the deadline and we were only the third people to do so.
On the way into the office, on a different bus than usual, I passed Othello's Restaurant. When I am Supreme Ruler of the Universe, they will be obliged to use the slogan, ``Moor for your money.''
The little cactus that Louise and Pete bought me has decided to flower. Gave me quite a shock when I noticed it this morning.
 |
Back in the office to sort out the paper. Today's a holiday, too but, hey, last week's six-day weekend kind of makes up for this week's four-day one not happening.
Slowly catching up with da blog. Posted from 29th March to 6th April, minus the pictures, which might take a while to sort out.
It's a gloriously warm and sunny day. CNN's weather forecast said 19°C; an LED sign on a pharmacy I passed on the way into the office said 25°C and I know which one I believe.
Got up late and decided to work from home. Also sorted out the photos for 5th and 9th April. Meanwhile, the cactus flower has become more florid.
 |
 |
[Photo posted 2007-04-23. Fiddling with my camera before going to bed.]
 |
Larry King's been in television for fifty years and CNN are replaying some of his best interviews. To be honest, I think he's a pretty poor interviewer and the ad breaks every five minutes are infuriating but, hey. I saw a bit of Nelson Mandela yesterday (when King had the good sense to just let the man talk) and watched Richard Nixon today. Interesting but not amazing. Nixon still, in 1990, held his total belief that the end justified the means.
[Photos posted 2007-04-23. Update on the cactus flower.]
 |
 |
[Photo posted 2007-04-23. Cactus update: now it's fully opened.]
 |
Stayed in the office to watch Australia vs Ireland in the World Cup, which was brief but amusing. And then I somehow managed to potter around on the web until after midnight. Methinks Friday 13th is not necessarily an auspicious day on which to start the new round of a chess tournament but, hey, it's Garry Kasparov's 44th birthday so it can't all be bad.
CNN shows an occasional adumentary, for want of a better term, made by, er, some merchant bank? Insurance company? Anyway, they consist of two-minute interviews with people who've invented interesting things and whatnot. A few weeks ago they had one in which it was claimed that the best ideas occur in the bed, bath or bus. Seems a bit euphemistic to me but appears more or less true. This afternoon, on the bus into the office, I was struck by a vague similarity between the narrow streets of Athens with their low-rise buildings and random bits of canyon. Maybe this idea will lead to interesting photographs at some point; maybe it won't.
The reason I was on the bus to the office on a Saturday, by the way, was that I left my laptop here last night. D'oh!
Layzee day. CNN had an interesting half-hour documentary about Salam Pax, who's a blogger in Baghdad. I've not had chance to read more than a couple of paragraphs of it but, if it's as good as his TV stuff, it should be worth a look. Also, this month's Revealed is about the sculptor Rachel Whiteread. Her work rocks (especially Embankment, which I saw while it was installed at Tate Modern); the documentary's pretty good, too and there are worse ways of spending twenty minutes or so.
Ireland beat Bangladesh! Go, Ireland!
You know how in the movies, when Our Hero is lost in the middle of nowhere and he comes across a shack in the woods and thinks his problems are solved but the shack turns out to be occupied by a big guy with an unkempt beard and crazy eyes and a dismembered chicken and, actually, Our Hero's problems are only just beginning? Well, that guy (minus the chicken, as far as I could see) was attempting complicated manoeuvres in an articulated truck just outside the university front gate as I was trying to come in. Two-hundred yard tailbacks and irate horn use in all directions.
``!! Important !!'' information from easyJet in my inbox. My flight to Gatwick will be landing five minutes later than they told me on Friday when I booked the tickets. If the world ends, you'll know why.
One of my on-line opponents made a dubious move with his rook. Dubious in the sense that my reply developed a bishop to a good square and forced him to put his rook back exactly where it came from. He remarked, ``*sigh* I guess Re1 was a really obvious mistake..''
CNN completely unwatchable: wall-to-wall Virginia Tech coverage with nothing really to say. At least the headline swoosher now says what news is being ignored: last night, that was only covering the shooting, too.
Went for a walk through the campus with my camera after lunch. It turned into an hour-long photo marathon so I now have another half-gig of JPEGs to sort through. Some of them look quite incredible, though. You might get to see them before Christmas. (Note that I've not said which year.)
[First selection of photos posted 2007-04-23. All of these were taken between the student cafeteria and the Maths department, via a route that, while not optimal, couldn't really be described as circuitous. Greece does flowers in spring.]
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
CNN still devoting the majority of airtime to Virginia Tech. Factoid of the day: there are an estimated 640 million guns in the world, of which 200 million are in the USA. ``That's one for every adult with plenty spare to hand out to the kids,'' says CNN.
[Photo posted 2007-04-23. As I was putting my shoes on to leave for work, I noticed the sunlight bouncing prettily off the floor. I should probably have used a polarizer to avoid the glare around the illuminated parts of the floor, which are actually reflections of the wall. But did I mention I like the new lens?]
 |
Ireland vs Sri Lanka was quite funny.
First class of the new semester. Seemed to go fairly well -- four students. We'll have to see how many come back on Tuesday.
I told you the busses were conspiring against me. On the way home, I decided to take the public bus that runs through the campus to the Metro station. As is its wont, it stopped before the university gate. Usually, at this point, I get off and walk down the hill but I was feeling lazy. Ten minutes later, another bus arrived behind us and I was directed to get on that one. Five minutes later, it finally pulls off and chugs down to Evangelismos. Twenty-minute bus journey replaces ten-minute walk from the gate.
London Transport have painted over a Banksy mural that the BBC say is ``estimated to be worth more than £300,000.'' What on earth does this mean? What does one get for one's estimated third of a million quid?
Mucking about with the camera, I took this. By no means high quality photography but not so bad, either. (Admission: it's in black and white partly because the TV was on so some of the highlights on the pieces had an unpleasant blue tint.)
 |
Got up late and spent most of the day on chess and photo editing. It was overcast so I wasn't tempted to add to the backlog. So, now I've sorted out the photos for 11th, 12th, 13th and 18th April. Also, flowers in black and white, all of which you've already seen in colour. I rather like the effect.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Mystery of the week. After listening to Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra op 31, I realised I had no other serialism in the house (possibly, the country) so went for Bach instead, since that also has the rather stark property that every note is definitely there for a reason. If anyone has any idea at all where is disc one of my copy of Gould playing Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, could you let me know?
The whole of Athens spent the afternoon either riding past my flat on a motorbike whose silencer had been replaced by a megaphone or driving past with their stereo on at a volume that would drown out even Disaster Area. As a result, I spent a slightly strange afternoon editing pictures of pretty flowers while listening to Razorlight and the angrier bits of REM (alas, Monster is in the office) on my headphones. I'm about 40% of the way through April 17th's photos.
[I've posted the photos I edited over the weekend and also the first batch of photos from Tim's stag, which I've been working on for the past couple of weeks. Just another 293 to go, though that number includes many that will be discarded.]
A bizarre cartoon. A Softer World is rarely funny but it usually manages to be strange in a good way.
The bus conspiracy continues. On my way home, I tried to catch a bus that's supposed to come every fifteen minutes. After waiting at the stop for fifteen minutes without having seen anything go up the hill, I decided to walk. Naturally, I saw four of the things going up while I was walking but I beat them all to the Metro station.
Confused a tourist this morning. I was walking into the university via the grounds of the monastery by one of the gates and caught up with him. He asked, ``Monastery?'' so I said, ``Yes.'' He was a bit taken aback by this so asked again, ``Monastery?'' at which I was a bit taken aback as he was obviously English. So I said, ``Yes. This is it.'' It then became clear that he was looking for a different monastery so I pointed him in the approximate direction.
[Photos posted 2007-04-30.] Came through the monastery again and took some photos. I didn't take any of the monastery itself as the front faces west and was in the shade when I passed. These are the woods below the monastery; I took several more shots but most of them were mysteriously out of focus. Can't decide if I prefer this one in colour or black and white.
 |
 |
Some of the flowers and remains of flowers. The dandelion clocks aren't actually dandelion clocks -- they're somewhat larger than tennis balls. The third picture is a 900x600 crop from the original 3888x2592 image from the camera, not scaled down at all. It's been sharpened a little but the detail is incredible. (Yes, this is just one eighteenth of the original image. Did I mention I like the new lens &c?)
 |
 |
 |
And the pine tree outside the office window has baby pine cones on it. Not the best photo ever but what do you expect with a 200mm lens and a subject that won't stay still?
 |
So, the Royal Society of Chemistry isn't happy about the standard of maths in British schools. They probably have a point but they're making it very bady. It's hardly surprising that a Chinese national university admissions test has harder questions on it than a British university's first-year test to determine which students need extra mathematics tuition, now, is it? The first one is designed to find the best students from a pool of several tens of millions; the second is designed to find the worst students from a pool of at most a couple of hundred. Well, duh.
OK, so I probably didn't need to stay in the office for the whole of the World Cup semi-final. Especially given that the result was obvious from the point where South Africa were 27/5. But I kept watching in the hope of either more bowling carnage or some batting carnage. Neither happened.
Dave's guide to discreet snogging in Athens, based on observations on the walk home.
Yay! Stephen Hawking's taking a ride in the Vomit Comet! Well, except that it's a Vomit Boeing 727 these days.
Yay! Dimitrios popped in to say that the paper we submitted to a conference has been accepted. The referees haven't recommended any changes except that one thinks the paper is too verbose (it'll have to be trimmed down anyway for the page limit) and doesn't like our notation (about which I don't think there's much we can do).
``Mr Kim Jong Il is a person who is capable, in some respects, of rational thought.'' -- Shinzo Abe damning with faint praise.
Took some more photos of the flowers after lunch. These dandelion clocks are regular dandelion clocks.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
My new plan for life: move to the US and start a heavy-plant hire company called Diggas, Hoes 'n' Ditches. (Americans refer to mechanical excavators as ``hoes'' for reasons I have yet to fathom.)
Did some photo editing and then went into the office to follow the World Cup final on the web. It seems somehow appropriate that the tournament should end in such a farce -- I wholeheartedly recommend Cricinfo's commentary towards the end of the Sri Lankan innings. At least the right team won.
Not sure quite why I felt the need to stay right until the end, given that the result was inevitable from the slow start the Sri Lankans made and the steady trickle of wickets. No Metro after midnight and I didn't leave the office until about two. It's about an hour's walk. And I saw lots of bats and an owl. At least, I assume it was an owl: I'd heard hooting earlier and saw a white flash swooping silently between two trees. Well, you can't really swoop silently, now, can you? Damnit, why are all English words for ``move very quickly'' onomatopoeic? Well, ``dart'' isn't onomatopoeic but owls definitely don't dart.
I was woken a little before noon by somebody playing very cheerful accordion music; spent most of the day editing photos, with a break to grab some souvlaki for dinner. T-shirts seen on the way there and back:
And quote of the week, from a young American man, rounding a corner with his girlfriend. First view of the Erechtheion at night; possibly at all. ``Oh. My. Goodness.''
Stopped at a stall at the end of Adrianou on the way back home. They have a variable range of Taschen art books and I could quite happily spend all my money there except that they're so damned cheap. The other week, I got an 200-page A5ish book of Robert Doisneau's photographs for Eur 6.99; today I bought a 240-page slightly-bigger-than A4 book of photos of Paris (including several by Doisneau, Cartier-Bresson, Lartigue and so on) for Eur 9.99, which is criminally cheap. A quick skim indicates that I need to keep a look out for Édouard Boubat (link to an interview I've not actually read but it does include some of his photos) and Izis Bidermanas and that the Paris Police took some pretty incredible reconnaisance photos of the 1968 student protests. (Incredible in the sense that, say, two of them appear in a book of fine-art photos of Paris.)
[Posted the photos for 25th and 27th April.]
Everyone in Athens is taking a four-day weekend, what with tomorrow being May day. Somehow, nobody going to work means that the Metro, the busses and the university are extra-busy.
Also, the Chinese maths problem posed by the Royal Society of Chemists last week contains at least one error. The arrangement of points specified in the question is not physically possible. I've submitted a proof of this to them; I'll be interested to see if I win the £500 prize... I don't hold out much hope, though -- their confirmation message was sent ``From: davidr [at] math.uoa.gr'' and, therefore, rejected by the University's mail server as a transparent forgery. Sigh. And I've subsequently received a warning message saying that my mail got stuck in their mail queues. Sigh.
Copyright © David Richerby, 2007.