A funny thing about the UK is that public notices and warnings tend to be rather long and drawn out, in comparison to the US. My current favorite is the noise that trucks make when they back-up:

In the US, a truck simply goes "BEEP... BEEP"

In the UK, there is a nasaly electronic female voice that goes "BEEP...Stand Well Clear! ... Vehicle Reversing!"

It's fantastic. I really have to make a recording of this for fuller appreciation.

Bit of a random collection of thoughts here, based largely around the attached series of photos. Click on 'em and they get bigger:

The journey began at the Gare d' L'est train station in Paris where we picked up our car, an Opel Corsa, which served us well. At the station we encountered what is possibly the worlds largest vending machine. This room-sized behemoth spits out everything from cat-food to toilet paper. We thought about getting some TV-dinners, but ultimately settled on a bottle of water.

In any case, we were anxious to get moving. The drive took about 3 1/2 hours, and after a bit of a parking fiasco inside an elaborate underground network of roadways, we found ourselves in lovely Luxembourg City. Despite a forbidding and sterile ring of suburbs, the city turned out to be really nice. The central "old town" is perched high on a hill between two river valleys, which are full of parks and gardens, and spanned periodically by magnificent bridges.

It seemed like a perfectly pleasant place to live and work, but I can't say Luxembourg city was exactly "rocking". I suppose if you're really into international affairs or tax laws, you might find quite a lot to do, but otherwise it's just a nice quiet place.

Still, it did have an interesting if only slightly palpable "diplomatic" flair in the air. That was fine with us though, and we had a couple of beers at the popular central square, took a few photos and got on our way.
So, we cruised off to Vianden, right along the border with Germany and were greeted by the stunning vista of the Vianden Chateau high atop the hill which overlooks the town. Our arrival called for a Champagne toast, of the finest Luxembourgois bubbly the Shell Station had to offer, We "eurocamped" for the next two nights, and basically did nothing but bike around, hike, eat and drink. It was fabulous. And you can't beat the 4 Euro a night campground, even if it was overrun by Dutch people in elaborate campervans.
Along with the enormous number of Dutch people, were practically every motorcycle enthusiast in Europe, which looks like a hell of a good way to see the country. Despite that, we rented some clunky bicycles from a shop so inept, they sold us a hiking map instead of a cycling one, which got us into a bit of trouble (don't bike on steep singletracks with a 3 speed schwinn). Nonetheless, we snuck into Germany along the shore of the reservoir above Vianden, discovered a pretty impressive network of trails for mountain biking or hiking. Certainly worth a return.

Despite all this promising activity, the residents of Vianden appear to be bored enough to do some bizarre things with the local foliage.

As for BitBurg - give it a miss. Rather odd German town where I wouldn't be surprised to see David Hasselhoff appear around a corner. Plus, Bitburger is nowhere near as good as I remember it being. If you're looking for a brewery trip near Luxembourg, pop over to the Trappist monastery at Orval, Belgium. A far nicer place with far nicer beer. They also make some fabulous cheese. I've got a hunk of it the size of my head to get through. Hope there's room in the fridge tonight.

In honor of the long weekend ahead (British holiday on Monday), I'm off to Paris tonight, then driving to the mysterious and forgotton nation of Luxembourg! I've read all 20 paragraphs ever written about this allegedly delightful paradise and indend to write at least the 21st when I get back on Tuesday.

The plan is to visit a place called Vianden and do some swimming and kayaking on the river there. Plus, looks like Bitburg isn't too far away - home of one of my favourite German beers, Bitburger, Bitte ein Bit! This could get dangerous.

Confronted by Starbuck's extortionate rates for wireless internet access, this Wired article makes a great analogy: "Charging for online usage would be like charging for salt and pepper." Because of the high cost of setting up and managing a pay-per-use network, it's a better investment for a cafe to just give it away.

Now I just need to buy one of these nifty "Wi-Finders" and wander around London for a while.

Recognition of a user's geographic location has finally become common on websites. Despite the fact that this is a rather fascinating development, I'm finding it more and more irritating.
That aside, Google is doing a great job of taking advantage of geographic recognition by returning Google keyword advertisements that are specific to the user's location. That's great for everyone involved - higher relevance to users, better clicks for advertisers, and more money for Google.

However, I sincerely hope Google never changes their main search results to reflect geography unless users specifically pick a filter. (This is now possible at google.co.uk, .fr, etc...) Leave that to AOL.

Darn. My plans to take advantage of Wi-Fi in the park appear to be flawed. Even without sunglasses, it's impossible to see my laptop screen outdoors, regardless of the degree of sunshine, or if I abscond to the shade.

Just got back from an amazing 4 days in Cassis, France. [click links for photos!]

To make it cheap, we Euro-camped, which is like camping except it's done in a crowded gravel lot with a bar and showers, and loads of RV sporting Dutch people and French teenagers.

Just down the hill from the campsite was the beautiful town of Cassis, blistering in the 100 degree heat, but made bearable by the sea, and the ease by which you can leap in at just about any location in town.

We took a road trip up to the edge of the Alps, where the French version of the Grand Canyon lies, and swam in a big reservoir there.

We also spent some time in Marseille, which is a surprisingly funky and cosmopolitan city. The Basilique of Notre Dame de la Gard dominates the city, and we sweated our way to the top for a fabulous view, then slid down the city's piste-like streets.

But the highlight of the trip was a sea-kayaking expedition into the famed Calanques between Cassis and Marseille. The Calanques are a series of fjord-like inlets cut into the limestone cliffs, where the water is deep and incredibly clear. You can swim, climb, and leap off cliffs into the magnificent water all day long.

I didn't bring my camera for fear of it's getting wet, but through the power of Google Image Search, here are a bunch of other people's photos to enjoy. (Jeff will post some photos later) The Calanque known as "en vau" is by far the nicest. I'm already making plans to return and spend a couple days exploring.

Sitting at an inevitable mid-cycle-ride pub stop along the river Lea, I noticed an odd attachment to some of the busses passing over a nearby bridge. (see photo). B and I debated their purpose, and came to two possible conclusions:

a) Handles for high level maintenance work or b) Branch deflectors.

What do you think?

Periodically, I read books whose authors choose to eliminate certain character's names and replace them with single capital letters, presumably the first letter in that person's name: "On Friday I met K for dinner...we had pizza."

Is there a name for this technique?

I've seen it done in both modern books and much older ones, so I can't say it's a historical thing. It always throws me for a bit of a loop, because I can't figure out what the point is. Is the author downgrading the importance of the character because it's the scene that matters? Is it supposed to evoke an air of mystery? Is it a way of keeping real-life people anonymous whom the author fears would be embarrassed by his including them?

Quite interesting. Well, I'm waiting in the office now for B to show up so we can go cycling, perhaps that will ease my mind.