Boadicea's Chariot

Sometimes life in the city can feel like a trap. There comes a time, after a variable number of circumstances occur, that one no longer feels safe — no longer feels comfortable in going about on basic business. This is how I often feel in San Francisco. In order, for example, to get from uni to the financial district, where my bank is located, requires a tube trip through two of the worst neighbourhoods in the city — the Mission and Tenderloin. Taking bus from the financial district obliges me to travel through the Tenderloin — the worst neighbourhood by far. Walking through the city at times makes me feel trapped — people milling about everywhere, in some places getting so congested that basic movement becomes highly restricted by a distinct lack of space. At other times, seeing the crumbling splendour of by-gone eras and increasingly destructive graffiti, now carved into glass rather than just drawn on, makes me wish to conclude that perhaps these circumstances, these self-feeding spirals are feeding a growing number of people with mental instabilities or simply rude.

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor to console him for what he is.
Francis Bacon

Goodnight everyone, sleep well.

I have always been interested in planes, and would have applied for the RAF or a commercial pilots licence if my eyesight had been 6/6 née 20/20 (when I were a lad you had to have uncorrected 20/20 vision to be a pilot, unlike now, I believe, which is annoying as my eyesight with giglamps is 20/20).

That being the case, I will mention all the different plane types we flew in on our trip to and around Oz, all with Qantas. This is a good airline, and should give BA a wakeup call. Continue reading “A trip to Oz: The planes”

It is late on a Thursday evening and I am trying to put off washing the dishes for as long as possible.
After a week’s holiday, a joyful time of frolicking in the Sierra Nevada Foothills, I returned Sunday evening to San Francisco. The the that followed, to this point, was at the beginning slightly painful. A week of peace, quiet, and harmony in an area with clean, fresh air and miles of rolling hills is difficult to leave behind in exchange for one of the world’s most congested blocks of concrete. As the week progressed, however, things would grow better. My Japanese lessons resumed and the teacher was rather surprising. An Edoko, Tokyo-native, judging on her accent she is a case apart from the average Japanese woman. While not a great beauty, she has a husky, gravelly voice and a sultry demeanour more akin to a Nipponic Marlene Dietrich than the stereotypical Japanese woman, much less a language teacher. My luck further continued in my weekly Kanji (Japanicised Chinese characters) when my memory had not fully abandoned me and I was able to score 90pc on my quiz. Tomorrow I will return to the Sierra Foothills, but only for the weekend. My excuse this time is a trip to buy a bottle of wine, a locally-produced Moscato.

We are not retreating – we are advancing in another direction.
Douglas MacArthur

Goodnight everyone, sleep well.