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Archive:
Month: March 2009
Anderlecht
Life, it is a giddy thing. Yesterday, I was in Amsterdam, where Dutch is spoken. Today, I am in Brussels, where Dutch appears on some shop billboards, and is the third language after Arabic. Yesterday, I was walking down the Zeedijk, where the first language was English. Today, I’m in Chaussée de Mons, where the […]
Χαῖρ’ Ἀμστελίου φράγμα, τό μοι ζῦθον διδάξαν!
Hail, Dam of the Amstel, Which hast taught me of beer! (Because for an exceedingly long time, including as I was growing up, the only beers you could get in Greece were Amstel—named for the river that Amsterdam dams—and Heineken (or as the Greeks call it, “the green one”), founded on the Amstel by a […]
Where I live
View Larger Map I now no longer live in Cheltenham (A: 20 km SE of the Central Business District, B), somewhere I’ve never really formed an attachment to. I now live in Oakleigh (C). Oakleigh is the outermost limit of where I was prepared to live: 15 km southeast of the CBD. End of Zone […]
Terminal 5, Heathrow
Hwæt! Ic eam agin in Engelonde gecuman! Ond ic wille agin to Mancestre Or Summeþinge Aeroporte, þæt mannum Terminale V yclept is! Right, that’s enough fake Old English unaided by a grammar or any understanding of Old English. The bus to Terminal 5 still takes 18 minutes, the security video in the bus is still […]
“So you have a house…”
Yes, I have a house. Now to work out what to say about the whole process, without twitching uncontrollably. I renovated. That should help explain things. OK, from the top. I entered into a protracted period of house-hunting, carefully evaluating market offerings and weighing them up, and not at all panicking that I’d be locked […]
General Update
(The temptation of the eeePC has so far been dodged: HKD 3500 is if anything dearer than AUD 650, and they were still flogging Windows on it. Heathrow will be the real test for the eeePC temptation, given what the Brit behind me was saying to the shopholder in Hong Kong: “Things seem to be […]
Hong Kong once again
In re: Last time I was in Honkers airport Once again, I am in Hong Kong airport, waiting to get back on the plane to *shudder* Heathrow. Wonder if I’ll end up in Manchester Or Something airport again. It being 6:30 am local time, the duty free shops are closed; so yet again I avoid […]
The Station I Shall Have Been Accustomed To
This post is courtesy of my boss, who has seen fit to pay for me to travel to Amsterdam Premium Economy, that I may turn up to the UKOLN Repository Workshop refreshed and productive. I’m just about at Hong Kong, and I type this with my laptop plugged into the patricians-only powerport (which took me […]
Resuming broadcast
Mpf. I’m not particularly good at this, am I. At any rate, I’m resuming broadcast, not least because I’m travelling next week to the Low Countries, and blogging my travels is a Good and Virtuous Thing to do. The trip shall involve Amsterdam — and I’ve already purchased the DK technicolor travel guide; Brussels — […]