on our last day we thought we may as well see this. got caught up in several metro line problems, so we didn't dare brave the lineups and lose our entire day. here's a shot that makes it look really big, although we both thought it was a lot smaller than we'd imagined it.

checked out notre dame right after, which is far more impressive. no good shots, however.

after a day of busting your body at the louvre it is nice to wander through the jardin des tuileries out back. kids float boats in the fountain, there is outdoor sculpture by the likes of lichtenstein and giacometti. and you can enjoy the clouds some more.

significantly larger than i expected. dazzling, really. at the end of a day that included visiting the mosquée de paris, jardin des plantes, louvre, jardin des tuileries, and the obligatory (but delightful) stroll up the champs élysées. it was the perfect way to end an absolutely perfect day in a city you cannot help but fall deeply, madly, in love with. it sounds corny, but i mean it sincerely.

rather than do the one day louvre sprint, we decided to jog it over two days.

as we crossed the rue de rivoli in front of the louvre i felt compelled to be a tourist.

i took a panorama shot of the louvre, but it didn't really turn out. here's my favourite shot from the bunch.

we spent a great deal of time in the sculpture areas. it blows you away to see so many famed pieces standing side by side by side.

i've always been taken with pierre ier legros' l'hiver.

and i found a new friend in the roman colonel steve austin (aka inconnu, roman, 10bc).

and then you stumble into spaces like the henry xviii room. yikes.

in our bid to get around the mona lisa we were nearly stomped to death by the battallion of tourists who march through the louvre directly to this sly bit of paint. there's a million photos of the old girl, so here's one of the berserker crowd jostling for position around her. you're technically not supposed to take photos of her, but i turned my flash off to get one of this social phenomenon.

the french museums are more liberal than the british ones and generally allow you to take non-flash photos. while tourists were mostly ok in following this, you watch a flash go off every two and a half seconds around the mona lisa as people hyperventilate in anticipation of getting their shot. pity that da vinci didn't invent a crowd control device for handling his crowds.

there's a million lovely things in the louvre i enjoyed. some of my favoured moments were standing awe struck by the jacques louis david masterworks. these are among my most loved late-18th/early 19th century paintings, and i cherished my time admiring them.

i get whistful thinking about the centre pompidou. it is a stunning place filled with stunning art (a renzo piano and richard rogers design).

one of the most overwhelming art experiences i've ever had is entering a room and being struck by miró's blue II. it is larger and more textured than i thought, and the three pieces join together to drown you in blue.

while i liked the london underground better in some regards, i really enjoyed the paris metro experience. what stood out most was the way that parisians flick the door latch before the train has stopped - they then step out while the train is coming to a halt, making their exit in one beautiful fluid action. this attitude struck me as distinctly parisian.

the metro stations look equally stylish.

clouds seem to move faster in paris. and they look really good. you can tell you've completely given yourself over to your journey when you start thinking stuff like this.

staying at a little place near les gobelins metro station, we wandered down to the mosquée de paris.

your imagination goes grisly in a place like this. there was a box of sawdust below the operating table and beneath the floorboards to prevent the congregation from getting rained on with blood. this old operating theatre is in the attic space of st. thomas church.

the place reeks with drying herbs, and was stifling on the summer day we visited on. there is a small display of surgical instruments, pill making equipment, and information about medicinal remedies of the 19th century.

my first impression of the underground was that it is shockingly easy to use, contrary to the jumble of lines that the tube map looks like.

one of the other things you'll immediately notice is the legendary 'mind the gap' signs and the booming mind the gap announcement. i'm very curious about what non-english speaking foreigners make of this.

we spent a fair amount of time on the tube, and hit quite a few of the unique stops during the three weeks we spent in london. we also got caught in our share of nasty line problems. one evening we hit problems on the tube and then complete stopages on the southwest train service that we needed to catch home. i think we got home sometime after 10 pm.

here's charing cross with its historic decoration.

and here's a couple shots taken at embankment.

that last shot hints at the level of ad saturation in the underground. one of the more ominous in-house ads points out how many injuries (and 1 death) that have happened due to the steep, high-speed tube escalators.

the other fascinating bit about the underground is how it is a class leveler. due to the population density of london, and the congestion of the small roads, everyone from millionaires to the working class take public transportation.

london's underground makes one wonder how anyone ever gets confused about vancouver's skytrain. given how many times a week i field questions about the difference between the 'expo line' and 'millennium line', i imagine how these poor souls would fare in london with its dozen lines and intersecting train services.

i've posted a bunch of photos of specific sites, but rather than just post single photos of some of these places i'll group a bunch together.

winchester palace ruins

big ben
it's hard to show a photograph of this thing. still, it's impressive in person - moreso than i expected.

parliament
same note as above.

tower bridge
often called 'london bridge' (which is a far less interesting bridge down the thames). got a classic tourist shot of the bridge opening from over by city hall, but i prefer this one instead.

trafalgar square
here's two photos taken over different days. one day we were caught in an insane downpour of rain and we rushed with the rest of the square to the nearest tube station entrance. i think it is the room filled with drowned rats feeling that gets londoners down.

channel four headquarters
another richard rogers partnership project. the building has a bit of that inside-out design, with the elevators on the exterior. quickly caught our eye when we got near it.

here's some views of another shiny london classic, from the richard rogers partnership. lloyd's of london is still striking and well worth checking out.

the grand architect of 17th century london, christopher wren, came up with the monument after the great fire of 1666.

it's not such a bad hike if you're in decent shape and relatively thin in order to squeeze by other people.

these aren't particularly original photos, but it's still an impressive place to visit even in light of contemporary london architecture.

deceptively simple, check out the arup millennium bridge site for info on the engineering of it. another foster and partners design, check their website for more info about the bridge and their other projects. here's a few shots of the link between the tate modern, bankside, to st. paul's cathedral. it's a scenic and aesthetically pleasing crossing.

we stumbled into city hall by accident, knowing nothing about this marvelous piece of architecture. when you reach this view you don't know which to gawk at - city hall juxtaposed with tower bridge or the swiss re building poking its head up above the buildings on the other side of the thames.

norman foster has solidly stamped his signature on london. we arrived at stansted airport, a foster design. our favourite buildings around london ended up being foster designs. we loved the jaunt from tate modern to st. paul's over foster's millennium bridge. london should change its name to normanfosterville.

the guardian has some more info about the city hall when it was constructed. below are some shots i took of foster's wondrous edifice. i spared you the tourist shots we took of each other kicking the large, black, steel balls outside. i can note, however, that we had to queue up behind kids to get the shots.

next trip i want to try and go inside, the interior looks spectacular.

for this meeting of the norman foster appreciation society we will look at the swiss re building, both affectionately and denigratingly known to londoners as the gherkin.

it is a shocking piece of architecture, to be sure, looking somewhat like a glass missile projecting out above the skyline.

the funny part about the swiss re building is that it pops up into damn near every cityscape photo you'll take of london, though it's not the easiest building to get up close to. we went out of our way to go see it and the lloyd's building, and it is seriously impressive to stand at the base of it. we just stood there shaking our heads. norman foster has remarkable vision, and whoever hires him has serious cojones.

here she is behind a little church.

behind the tower of london.

and up close.

i think i'm in love with his brilliant architecture.

one day we walked over the bridge between kingston and richmond, and proceeded to follow the thames towards london.

along the way we encountered a bunch of river boats that appeared to be inhabited, as well as the birds below.

at some point we came across a gate that led to a field. eventually, that field led to the hampton court grounds.

don't let anyone ever tell you that you cannot get a nasty sunburn in england. the walk went on a lot longer than we anticipated, and i was a toasty glowing red for the next couple of days.

i don't photograph people that much, save for pictures of family and friends. speaker's corner at hyde park, on a sunday afternoon, is an electric place where you cannot help but want to capture some of the excitement on camera.

the speakers, whether on ground or on ladder, set up and begin speaking. slowly, a crowd assembles around the speaker. after a bit, if the speaker is provocative enough, someone in the audience opens up dialogue.

sometimes the audience starts arguing amonst itself, and this is where you begin to worry that things might turn ugly. especially when the conversation has to do with religion, as it often does.

sometimes, however, the debate over religion takes the form of a dialogue between two of the speakers. while it is strange seeing a cowboy hat wearing christian and a muslim verbally joust, it is even stranger seeing them defend each other to the audience. they were so determined to have polite and meaningful discussion that one would often yell at the audience to allow the other to finish his point.

or you might see two english girls politely listening to a muslim man explaining the concepts of islam.

in the photo below i was trying to take a few shots of the conversation. before i knew it i had the old man on the left wagging his finger menacingly and uttering "you best not have taken my fucking picture!" exit your mate japh quickly, stage left, after pointing and muttering something about the people behind him. one of my favourite photos of the whole trip. and the only time during the trip that i seriously thought i might get my head knocked off.

the primary reason we went to england was for a wedding. it was held in derby, a few hours to the north near nottingham. unless the m25 is a mess on a friday afternoon, in which case it takes five hours. a very long five hours.

you see, what they call an eight seater passenger van in england is not exactly what we have in mind in north america. the vauxhall rental van gave tiny a whole new meaning. in north america consumer demand is all about power and size for safety. in england it's about fuel prices and space. the english system makes far more sense from an environmental perspective, although i wouldn't really want to see the results of an accident between a british and american automobile. this isn't such a concern in england as their transports are also pint sized.

outside the derby islamic centre was a lovely sign that warned us that we should mind our car speed due to the presence of elderly people. that's one of the cutest signs i've ever seen.

leading our wedding party to the hall were dhol players. those drums are impressively loud, as evinced by the earplugs the dhol players wore.

finally, i noticed in england that many muslims are very fashionable (yes, even outside of the gaudy spectacle that is harrod's). check out the christian dior hijab worn by the henna lady during the mendhi. i call this look 'fashionably conservative'.

while i'm not a fan of hijabs, i have even more dislike for the contradiction of displaying designer label modesty.

it's funny, though, that in some of the muslim communities the women take it upon themselves to wear hijabs. i've heard of innumerable instances of these 'fashionable fundies' (i can't take credit for that one, it's a term one of my muslim relatives came up with) looking down their noses at other women who don't wear the hijab. as an aside, another muslim slang i heard for women who wore the burka to the wedding is "ninja", as in "there's the fundies and ninjas standing outside on the hill looking down on everyone inside bhangra dancing." for anyone who thinks a muslim is a muslim is a muslim, clearly they have not been to a muslim social event. there is definitely some social divide based on degree of conservativism. everything from prayer five times daily to the occasional raising of the wrist.

but back to the hijab. there are two levels of hijab superiority: 1) women who wear the hijab (hijabis) over those who don't, and 2) the brand name of your hijab.

i can see the dior advert now: there is a breeze and a dark coloured backdrop. the camera follows the flowing tip of a scarf along until it reaches the top of someone's head. camera pans out, revealing the stunningly beautiful hibaji. a breathless voice queries "are you fashionably conservative? dior."

outside of my little rant there i had an excellent time. my muslim in-laws are terrific people, and superb hosts (anyone who caters to a pain in the ass vegan is a superb host, in my books). while i'm glad i don't live directly in a strong muslim community (or any close-knit social community, for that matter), i look forward to making it back to derby and the surrounding area some day.

i am by no means a monarchist, and hadn't put a visit to the queen's pad as high on my list. however, on our first day to central london my wife's whole family came out so we did the tour of the big tourist sites.

it is a bit strange standing at the gates of buckhingham palace, as though you're a figure in a children's book about london. what i mean is that it is very unreal standing in front of these monumental institutions.

here's a shot of some of the decoration surrounding the roundabout that passes in front of the palace.

and here's a shot of the fountain in front of the palace. intimidating figure.

and don't be fooled by the machine guns that the queen's guardsmen carry. they're slow.

a few days later, when the sky was moody and we were getting lost, we stumbled upon the queen's horse guard's palace. after coming off of a busy london street you walk into the wide expanse where the guards practice horse riding and all that. i love that sky.

we had the good fortune of staying with new family in kingston upon thames during our trip. naturally, during our first few days of acclimatisation we found pretty much everything amusing. correction: i always find signage amusing because i have the mind of a child. ah, the simple pleasures.

here, then, is a sign informing us to pay heed to the humped zebra crossing. fortunately, we didn't run into any.

along the thames, down past bentalls shopping centre and by the eatery strip, is a 'no mooring' sign that has seen better days (and multiple revisions). the sign is an invitation to begin mooing aloud to the delight of no one but yourself.

bbc news points out that interest-free loans are being offered to people who want to buy art.

there are 250 participating galleries, the loans can be for up to 2000 quid, and have a 10 month repayment period.

what a fantastic idea for encouraging people to purchase art they would have otherwise walked past because they didn't have the cash on them at the time. as one lady noted, there is a lot of good art available that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. by helping buyers purchase art we are helping artists to make a decent living.

my question is whether or not the collection-agency is as creative in its means for recouping on failed payments.

churches and cathedrals are obviously a big draw to london's architecture tourists. a real challenge would be to travel to london and somehow not see them.

all soul's church
stumbled into this after turning the wrong way en route to hamley's toy store. i liked all the construction cranes hovering around behind it.

southwark cathedral
or while walking along the south bank of thames, heading west towards the tate modern, ancient southwark confronts you.

st. martin in the fields
a classy piece of architecture sitting across the street from the national gallery, national portrait gallery, and trafalgar square. one thing i became aware of is how many of these famous places are crammed into a single block.

temple church
or if you've been reading the da vinci code, like nine trillion other people, you can wander down a lane and find temple church buried in a courtyard. it's surrounded by other buildings which makes picture taking difficult. this seclusion does keep a lot of people from stumbling into it, however, like our host who works in the neighbourhood and hadn't seen it until we went looking for it.

st. paul's cathedral
religious or not, the interior of st. paul's is exhilarating and awe inspiring to view. they are picky about cameras inside, so here's some exterior views.

first a shot of st. paul's filthy apse:

then a shot from the dome, illustrating the ongoing restoration work:

and finally a view of paternoster square from the top of st. paul's:

shri swaminarayan mandir
one of our new friends in london took us to the hindu temple where he and his family go. i couldn't take any pictures as they took security more seriously here than at stansted airport. the shri swaminarayan mandir is breathtaking, and very worthwhile to visit. here's a description from the website that gives an idea of what makes this place so special:

Using 5,000 tonnes of Italian Carrara marble and the finest Bulgarian limestone, it was hand-carved into 26,300 pieces by 1,526 skilled craftsmen.

Traditionally, all the masonry of such a mandir is loadbearing in itself, with no reinforcement from ferrous metals, such as steel in its foundation or structure. This in itself extends the life of the mandir to over a thousand years due to absence of erosion through temperature variations or corrosion of steel. The cantilevered dome is believed to be the only one in Britain that does not use steel or lead. The ferrous metals concentrate earth's magnetic field, which impedes meditation.

westminster abbey
can one go to london and not visit westminster abbey? naturally, we went and paid a visit to dear chaucer, dr. johnson, dickens, newton and darwin.

while it is certainly no where nearly as awe inspiring as st. paul’s, it is of course impressive and worth visiting. fortunately, the tourist herd wasn’t too crazy when we went but standing behind obnoxious tourists is enough to push one to violence. fat foreigners, of a certain north american country i will not point at, resting their lazy asses on top of people’s tombs and talking at ear splitting volume while they hold up queues and generally act like egocentric wastrels.

and then there is the institution of the church itself, and the necessary evil of its economic security relying on pandering to tourists. the thing most distressing about the marketing arm of the church is how capital supersedes decency. for instance, in the north cloister at westminster abbey there is a coffee stand and postcards for sale. unfortunately, all of this sits on top of grave markers on the floor. you have the cream and sugar table rolling over and defacing the marker of someone’s burial site. given that the church viewed these individuals’ deaths significant enough events to grant them a permanent memorial it is quite disgusting that they then trod over the dead with such deliberate carelessness.

what's travel without at least one meltdown?

i have a tactic for travel that includes the following:

1) each day pick several things you want to do
2) consult maps, decide on travel routes, complete items from step 1
3) after step 2 spend several hours intentionally getting lost

getting lost is perhaps one of my favourite activities, though it is understandably frustrating to my fellow travelers. especially when you drift into central london without a game plan and proceed directly to step 3.

after the meltdown we wandered into liverpool street station to chill out and get our day together. after about half an hour in silence, save for the occasional whir of the destination slats flipping on the leader board, we were completely mellowed. what a great station.

walking into the british museum great court knocks you over. as you walk through the entrance the court opens up to a large open area covered by a ceiling designed by norman foster. i won't go on at length, since there's plenty more foster photos to come later on.

the british museum collection is completely overwhelming. i expected it to be large and filled with amazing things, but i wasn't prepared for the constant shock from seeing the quality and quantity of items in their collection. i'm used to seeing old stuff in the singular. at the british museum you see old stuff en masse. there isn't one etruscan vase for you to marvel over - there are dozens.

here is a photo of the asian galleries, featuring a massive number of religious sculptures. you want your ganesh? they got em. lots of em.

the collection is so huge they were able to create rooms dedicated to topics like money or clocks. one of my favourite rooms was the clock room, highlighting examples from the development of timepieces.

i'm also a great fan of the bubblewrap statue. they were setting up a few things in one area, and the wrap hadn't yet come off this fellow.

after a few hours of exhausting ourselves we'd go outside for breaks. here is a photo of the ceiling above the main entrance.

and here is a photo of a pigeon hanging out by the main entrance. it was the filthiest pigeon i'd ever seen, and wanted to get a closeup of this emblematic london pigeon. unfortunately he walked out of my view and took off before i got the shot i wanted. here's his ass.

we went back to the museum a few times to take it all in, as it's a bit much to enjoy in one day. besides the asia and clock rooms, one of my favourites is the maya room. there are some incredible mayan lintels and sculptures. what a remarkably morbid culture. why isn't there a film featuring pre-contact mayan culture? maybe because it'd be hard to get a rating low enough to permit it into theatres.

the folks at we make money not art note that john cleese has started his own tv station of sorts.

i'm surprised no one has done this sooner, suppose broadband connections are only now reaching the point where it's viable. question is, are people willing to shell out 50 bucks (27 pounds) a year for this? i suspect not. perhaps if they came up with a shorter term subscriber model initially so people could determine if it was really worth their money or not. i reckon it'll be dead within the year from lack of subscribers.

still a fascinating idea, but one based on expanding on one's existing fame derived from traditional media. the next model may be someone building up fame entirely from their blog or somesuch thing and then trying to launch this sort of subscriber supported universe. at this point i think people don't expect to pay for crap on the internet. perhaps middle agers (the ones paying for legal music downloads, for instance) will embrace this model.

i do wish cleese all the best with this novel project, and would consider subscribing to see how it plays out if i could justify dropping the cash on this right now.

it is possible i have become afflicted with the nefarious ‘travel bug’, whose symptoms include an irresistible itch to quite one’s day job and roam the earth, often accompanied by a general malaise and/or discontent with one’s present circumstance.

a month has passed since we returned from london, and i continue to think often of that marvelous city. yes, it is madly busy, the air quality is atrocious, there is little in the way of natural beauty, and its citizens are generally miserable and oscillate between indifferent and hostile. but it is also a tremendous place filled with art and beauty and the crackling energy of human existence.

admittedly, i did not immediately embrace london the same way i did paris, but that may be nothing more than the result of my first impressions of the great city being clouded by the fog of jetlag and general exhaustion from the life i had temporarily left behind.

we spent around three weeks in london, and during that time the ancient city became a charming friend. in three weeks one can scarcely become familiar with the vast and labyrinthine metropolis that is london, which is part of what i admire the city for. its secrets are multitudinous and its impressive history permeates everything, infusing the present with substance and endless intrigue.

it is not difficult to understand why peter ackroyd is so enamoured with the place, as evinced by london, his devotional biography and 800-odd page love letter. before leaving vancouver i made my way through a large chunk of the book, and attempted to polish it off unsuccessfully during the flight over. london is so epic in scope and character that it is difficult to describe it effectively. reading it does, however, give one a greater sense of the city and its people, and why it is so compelling.

[09/24/04]

this is a terrific short overview of newton’s work and ideas. written in james gleick’s standard, highly digestible style, newton offers us a reminder about the development of scientific thought, with the perils and politics surrounding it.

newton is presented as a extraordinarily man of intellect who was equally concerned with his religiosity. the book gives us an impression of what newton’s life was like, and it seems like a lonely place. he spent a long while teaching, living the celibate life as mandated by his employer. his work was done secretly (particularly the alchemical practices), and his reputation grew slowly. eventually, though, he takes on the cushy government post of managing the country’s currency and heads the royal society of london.

in the age of lengthy bio that we live in it is refreshing to sit down with a crisp, engaging, and intelligent book that helps us understand and appreciate one of britain’s greatest minds. the finest 191 page bio you'll read anytime soon. and one likely to make you seek out the longer version because your curiosity has been piqued.

on a recent trip to saskatoon i saw the intel-80/85 family user's manual on my brother's bookshelf. after browsing through it, wondering what the hell he was doing with the 1979 user guide, he surprised me by pulling the board out of his closet. it's a board i haven't seen since i was a kid, at which time i didn't know was an intel (since this is pre-pc days the brand intel would have been entirely meaningless to me anyway).

here's a blurb about it from the antique chip collector's site:

The 8085 was the follow-on processor to the very successful Intel 8080A processor. The 8085 got its name because it was Intel's first 5 volt microprocessor. The 8085 was 100% software compatible with the 8080A with increased systems performance. The initial 8085's were based on NMOS technology and the later "H" versions were based on HMOS technology.

The 8085 incorporated all the features of the 8224 (clock generator) and the 8228 (system controller) increasing the level of system integration. The 8085 along with and 8156 RAM and 8355/8755 ROM/PROM constituted a complete system. The 8085 used a multiplexed Data Bus and required the 825X-5 support chips. The address was split between the 8-bit address bus and 8-bit data bus. The on-chip address latch of 8155/8355/8755 memory chips allowed a direct interface with the 8085.

ah, the tedious hours spent programming that mother to do the most trivial of tasks. still, probably one of the biggest reasons i became fascinated with computer technology.