Snowed in and Snowed under

Of my 20+ years in Scotland, I can't recall a wilder December, paralysing the entire country in such a manner.  It does create perfect conditions for winter outdoor fun, but wasted, as I have been and still am completely snowed under with work.

This is a 'nose to the grindstone' December for me, so the closest I come to outdoor fun is getting to dress up in my high-tech winter mountaineering gear (sadly, minus the axes and crampons) to crunch through the icy paths to and from work.

Usually when I'm snowed under, I get to live through my climbing partners' outings.  This time, despite both being on a two-week break, they have failed to bag their first winter climb of the year.  You see, such outings are as complex as one of NASA's space shuttle missions, there are numerous variables to contend with:

• Mission 1: Failure to get the crew together (one spent the morning in his car stuck on the M77, the other settled with waving his axe around in his flat)
• Mission 2: Adverse weather conditions (snow and ice are good, but gales and blizzards are not)
• Mission 3: Avalanche risk (always to be taken seriously, even if it's referring to Arthur's Seat)

While some were sweating in their salopettes at home or in their car, longing for proper winter action, Golf boy had his own little adventure a few days ago.  Having set off at 8 am for a 20-minute drive to work, by 10.30, he was only nearly half-way, and called for suggestions on how he should ration his only food supply of two cereal bars.  Then, there was the worry of having to abandon the car momentarily for a wee in the bushes (his concern turned out to be completely valid as his colleague was cautioned by the police for such actions - for leaving his car, not for weeing in the bushes - further along the motorway).  By 11.30, a couple of other motorists managed to shift some cones and turned onto the other side of the motorway.  Golf Boy followed suit and started heading back; he eventually got home after 2.30 pm.  It turned out that he was one lucky boy!  Many who eventually made it into work ended up spending the night in the office (as roads remain stuck, all public transport stopped and local hotels filled up instantly); those who didn't make it, ended up spending the night in their cars.

The forecast for the next few days is for slightly higher temperatures and a bit of thawing, after that, it's back to winter wonderland.  Thinking ahead to my ice-climbing trip in January, while I may be struggling to find time to train hard physically, I am being trained to adapt to the arctic conditions - vertical ice and minus 20C, bring it on!

Carbon footprint

I have been quite proud of my reduced carbon footprint this year (even though it is at the expense of my British Airways gold membership).  Incredibly, my new laptop seems to have more than made up for it.

Having spent months stalking geeky forums, eagerly awaiting its release, I was really exited when it's finally time to place an order for my new laptop.  I tracked its path regularly and kept looking out for the UPS man to arrive.  I was like a child on Christmas morning...

...until I get to the point of tracking my laptop across the continents for the third time (second replacement) in four weeks.

Funny money

I have finally done all my overseas trips for 2010!  Although not entirely home and dry (still have few more meetings in London, and I'm writing this on a train back from a meeting south), life does instantly feel a little less hectic.  

This year, my overseas work travels ended on a high note with a very fruitful and fun time in Prague.  Those who have suffered my incessant moaning about teaching (not that I do much at all) will be surprised to find that this is one of my two annual teaching commitments that I actually quite look forward to - the varying European locations may have something to do with it.

Prague is one of my favourite European cities.  I have been twice for work, but both times I enjoyed and wished that Golf Boy had gone on the trip with me.  It's a great city with interesting history, beautiful architecture and superb music (especially jazz) scene; some areas are positively cosmopolitan.  There is still much of the previous Eastern European charm to the city, and there are few better ways to experience such 'charm' than encounters with the local taxi drivers.  What the taxi drivers know that we don't, is that armed with a wallet full of what looks like monopoly money in denominations of 100s and 1000s, even the best statistical and economic minds struggle to appreciate the real value of this 'funny money'.  During the day, there had been many journeys going between hotel and conference centre.  It was not until later in the evening, did we realise that we have been charged between 390 Kč (fixed fare with the official hotel taxi) and 800 Kč for the same journey.  On one occasion, my colleague, who reluctantly paid the driver 600 Kč queried the invisible ink on the receipt he was given.  The taxi driver misunderstood and thought he was questioning the fare, and after much protesting by shouting "it's the computer" (i.e. that's what the meter says) and "I don't understand", he simply grabbed the receipt, stuffed 200 Kč back into my colleague's hands and drove off!  

So, on my final night in Prague, as we were all staggering out of the evening gathering at 2 am, I was somehow nominated to be the one in charge of negotiations with the taxi driver.  Having always believed that I have the haggling gene in my blood, I was feeling quietly confident until I discovered that the whole square was deserted and there was only one lone taxi around, therefore obliterating any potential bargaining power I may have been able to muster.  I went up to the driver and asked what the fare would be - "approximately 300" he said with a grin; "300, yes?", I emphasised; "approximately, approximately", he insisted.  With my final attempt, I pulled out 300 Kč from my pocket and said that's all I have, he said "ok" and we all piled in.  When we got to the hotel he did the normal computer ritual and quite unsurprisingly, he turned round and said "computer says 381".

Gruyère and rosemary cake

I'm turning into a Yotam fan!  Another great recipe available from the Guardian website:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/12/ottolenghi-gruyere-and-rosemary-cake

Ice Factor

Is it just me, or am I the only one here wondering how we got to November so quickly?  I probably say this every year, but where has the year gone?

Puzzlement aside, I'm quite fond of November.  This is traditionally the time of the year when Golf Boy and I suddenly realise that we're still nowhere near any sort of plans or agreement to how and where we would spend our January.  Luckily, our last-minute no-fuss approach hasn't resulted in any major disasters so far (perhaps with the exception of the time when we missed the flight back to Hong Kong from Borneo the day before Chinese New Year's Eve...), and our January adventures have become our highlight of the year.

However, this year we will be deviating from protocol, and there will be no expedition east until the summer.  In order to maximise the opportunities of my work travels, our month of indulgence will not be until the summer, in Japan.  While there should not be any complaints, summer 2011 is a long way away, a small distraction is required...

I guess this is my way of pre-answering all your questions of "Why?" and confess to my moment of weakness (or madness) when I quite excitedly agreed to join my climbing partners on their annual trip to ice-climbing in Norway in January.

Thinking back to my whole two winter climbing attempts to date, they were both epic outings; somehow Norwegian frozen waterfalls don't strike me as a 'gentler' option.  I think I'm coming to terms that stopping procrastinating and starting training is inevitable.

Was it one of my moments of madness?  Let's see - hand me a couple of axes, then spend a week with me, in the middle of nowhere...

'Dear climbing partners, there's no backing out now!'

Halloween Efforts

Halloween marks a major step forward in Operation 'Bottomless Pit' - two and a half years and 50 squared meters of solid oak later, we finally have a floor in the lounge!  I can't deny that it has been a bit ridiculous -  people build grand designs, complete major listed conversions in shorter time than this.  I can only take comfort in the statistics that over 70% of renovations that span beyond one year never gets finished, we're beating the odds here.

Incidentally, our first Halloween here at the flat was 1995, when we just bought the place.  We still hadn't moved in at the time, but decided to have a Halloween party here nonetheless.  I remember saying to everyone not to worry about the carpet as we had plan to replace them before we move in properly.  Well here we are in 2010, many Halloweens later, they finally got replaced.

It would be apt to have another Halloween party to mark the occasion, but we just haven't been organised enough and settled for a civilised Sunday lunch out with the usual suspects.  Although no fancy dress required, Golf Boy did attend with a comedy finger, unfortunately for him, it was not for the Halloween effect.

Having had a mini operation to extract a piece of embedded glass from inside his finger, following by an unplanned A&E post-op visit the next day, a simple comedy bandage somehow doesn't seem entirely reflective of the scale of the drama...

Clockwork Orange

What do youths read these days?  Do they read the same kind of stuff as we did when we were teenagers?  Well, I don't know many teenagers, but the few parents of teenagers I asked seem to think that is the case.  If this is true, do generations just go through the same literature cycle, and has there not been any movement on cult literature in the past 20 years?

This has been bugging me since Golf Boy and I went to see A Clockwork Orange at the Citz last week.  During the interval, he quite observantly pointed out that we were in the minority - the older audience in the crowed.  While I was busy protesting being described as "old(er)", I did come to realise that we were among a room full of young people.

It did surprise me a little.  When we go and see bands from our uni days, the crowds are generally similar in age - ageing rockers wearing the band T-shirt from 20 years ago that they clearly have grown out of long ago.  I wasn't quite expecting the retrofest, but Clockwork Orange was a book of my youth, where are all my fellow ex-cult fiction readers?

I guess cult classics are just that, it ought to appeal to generations of readers.  Although I remember having come across a definition of cult fiction as "books that you take very seriously when you're 17...  books our children just won't get".  Well, I don't know if I did take it so seriously when I was 17, but the latter clearly can't be true.

I'm reading Julian Barnes's History of the World in 10&1/2 chapters at the moment, perhaps it's time for another cult novel.  I'll need to investigate our modern day cult novels, praying it's more than just Twilights the series...

Whereas for the production at the Citz, it was very good.  Love the way they have updated it with references to recent world events.  The fight scenes were creative and well choreographed, although I think they went a bit mad with the flashing lights at times.  Golf Boy and I agreed on 4 stars!

Cauliflower Cake

Spotted this recipe on the Guardian website the other day:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/02/cauliflower-cake-recipe-yotam-ottolenghi

I was very curious, had to give it a go.  Simple yet satisfying.

Teletubbies or Telegenies?

Extended television viewing seems to be one of the latest evils to threaten our nation's public health.  Many boffins out there have been trying to prove that kids watching extended hours of TV are more likely to be obese and generally unhealthy.  There may be basis for the theory, but solely blaming all this on TV viewing is over-simplistic.

On reviewing one of these research proposals, my colleague told me of his personal experience with his young boy.  Like most parents, he was trying to discourage his son from spending too much time in front of the TV, and decided to allocate some regular time to a more healthy activity of digging in the garden.  This seems to have worked well, as his son went on to join a school club for gardening activities.  Even more impressive, was when this group of school kids managed to dig up some unidentified truffles in the school garden that is believed to be of some value.  However, when interviewed by the BBC about how they plan to spend their fortune, the consensus was mountains of sugary sweets.

On the other hand, my gran had always appreciated the value of TV viewing.  When my sister started living on a canal boat, what she was most dismayed at wasn't the practical difficulties with boat living but that my sister has chosen not to have a TV on board - "how would she know what's going on with the world?!".

Well, my gran would have been proud of Golf Boy and me.  For a while, we have been shopping for a new couch; while we couldn't agree on a couch, we did find an armchair that we both liked.  It's on sale for 20% less, but that's because there's damage on the leg.  Realising that the chair has been in the shop for a while, in the words of 'Kirsty and Phil', we sensed "a deal can be done".  Immediately, we tune ourselves into 'apprentice mode' and started negotiations:

..."that's a small discount for a damaged chair"...
..."probably, but we are only authorised to further reduce to £xxx"...
..."hmm...  that's quite a serious damage, it will cost us £xx to get it repaired"...
..."how much are you willing to pay?"...
..."we think you should take another 30% off (i.e. lesson from 'Dragon's Den', offer below what we really would accept)"...
..."we need to ask head office"...

Then, we left the offer on the table with our telephone number and walked away...

The next day, we got a call.  They were willing to go £20 above our price - Result!

Guinness and cucumber sandwiches

Like any other professions, there are certain unwritten codes of conduct to being an academic.  One that I've been taught never to deviate from, is that any civilised meetings to be held after 4.30 pm should only take place in a licensed establishment on Byres Road.  Our best work are probably the ones that had stemmed from the scribbles on the back of a beer mat during one of these sessions, while contributing significantly to the beer economy (or that's the line we're sticking to anyway).

However, last week, in a moment of weakness, we opted for a three-tier cake and cucumber sandwich experience instead of a good honest pint of Guinness at Tennents - three tiers of salmon, cucumber and egg sandwiches, raisins and apple and cinnamon scones, fruit cake and mini cupcakes, absolute sugar heaven!

Sadly, the sugar rush was a bit short-lived when I got the 'Save Tennents' email from the usual suspects.  The word on the street is that one of the remaining spots in the West End where you could always get a decent pint and arguably the best lunch-time steak pie or fish and chips is to undergo major refurbishment - it's going to be murdered and resuscitated as a bar-bistro!  Another bar-bistro is absolutely pointless!  On the other hand bar-cake shop, to bring us Guinness and cucumber sandwiches, might just be the winning recipe...  Crazy thoughts aside, we need to save Tennents!

Jamie's Italian

Well, you can't expect me to do a blog and not talk about food, and I have waited till the fourth posting (the jelly babies reference in the previous posting doesn't count)...

I've always been a sceptic of celebrity-chef restaurants, so when Jamie's Italian opened in Glasgow a few months ago, I really wasn't in a rush to try it.  However, having read several reviews, my curiosity finally led me to stand in a (thankfully short) queue outside the restaurant one afternoon.  Never one for booking in advance (I'd like to think I'm spontaneous, but in reality, I'm simply disorganised), I have no problem with the no booking policy, but many seem to be quite offended by that.

While it may not have been the best Italian in Glasgow, we had a very enjoyable lunch.  The cold whitebait dish was a bit odd, but the pasta was delicious.  Our favourite was probably the courgette fritters.

The Herald review described it as "a shrine to the patron saint of celebrity chefs" and "overdose of Jamie Oliver", I couldn't find better words myself.  This does make me wonder though - perhaps we ought to be more ambitious with Operation "Bottomless Pit", go beyond the standard renovations for the mortals and build a shrine to the patron saint of all good things in life!?

Upping my Game

Getting coaching is a bitter sweet experience, and last Saturday, I had a coaching session at Glenmore Lodge.  I have always thought of myself as quite a keen climber, but on reflection, my commitment has been a bit sporadic.  It's becoming clear that if I want to climb at the level that I aspire to climb, I really need to up my game.

Admittedly, the end of the climbing season is quite an odd time to get coaching.  There were four of us keen beans: Kai - a camp manager from Malaysia with little experience, bionic Dave who is an experienced mountaineer, hill runner and climber all round, Steve the tree surgeon who is a regular winter climber and has done rock climbing with his mountain-rescuer father in his youth and me.  After a brief chat about expectations, Nick, our instructor soon put us through a day of bouldering and climbing, indoors and outdoors.

It had been a day of revelations:
- climbers of different sizes and climbing abilities often have similar limitations in their climbing
- lots of bouldering, especially outdoors, is critical to success
- I may only be 165 cm tall, but when I'm climbing outside, my arms are not as short as I'd imagine
- jelly babies are the best way to refuel on a long climbing day

Overall, the verdict is - I'm good at fluidity but pretty bad at efficiency.  It seems there is much work to be done.

Living Dangerously

One of the ongoing projects is Operation ‘Bottomless Pit’. I have never had the urge to document this, but it's been going on for so long that people are now demanding photographic evidence of the domestic chaos to prove that we're not simply being antisocial. So here goes the latest...

We have now come to sorting out the fireplace. In true 'bottomless pit' style, while we managed to get a new slate hearth, we lost the fire. It was condemned on the spot and apparently, there was simply not enough space on the gas man’s form to list all the hazards.

So few weeks on, the guys came back to carry out much drilling and hammering, I now have a new and perfectly safe fire. Not sure if it’s just me, or the obsessive-compulsively lined up coal... I still think the old “death trap” is more in fitting with everything...

Process of Elimination

After much procrastinating, I'm finally making a start on this wee blog.  There are too many projects in my head, and I'm beginning to doubt that I can do them all (not simultaneously anyway).  This blog is my attempt at helping myself prioritise, eliminate and identify the one to take beyond my garden shed.


And if all fails, I still get a good rant - it's all therapeutic, so they tell me...