Slingshot

Calvi harbour

We wanted to come back to Corsica for a holiday since we had such good memories of the island from our first trip. Only there’s always the risk of finding things less interesting when you see them for the second time, so we mixed it up a little.

Instead of coming in the Summer, we aimed for Spring. The downside here is that you risk inclement weather (and we got our fair share of that), but the advantage is that the island is more or less devoid of tourists. Since you’re in advance of the summer, everyone appreciated your custom in the same way that we look for the arrival of swallows to herald the coming summer.

A lone tree in abandoned Occi

Of course in spring you can’t really go swimming in the ocean unless you were brought up in Iceland and had your entire nervous system desensitised during your frozen childhood. On the other hand, generally warm weather during the day allows you to take advantage of one of the best places in France to go walking.

We were lucky enough to pick the right days to go for long walks when the sun was with us.  We went to the abandoned village of Occi, a modest 30 minute walk above the village of Lumio, but had to beat a hasty retreat when the sky threatened a downpour (which never occurred).  A few days later we walked from Calvi all the way to the tip of the “almost-island of Revellata”, which is a long spit of land at the northeastern tip of the island.  The walk is complicated by many luxury villas being built along the path, but the views are sometimes spectacular, even without the summer sun.

Images of Revellata

We also visited a vineyard, and I regret not having the time to visit several.  Perhaps this is something to do next time we go.  The reception at the Orsini Vineyard was very warm, and while I find Corsican red wines far too rich and thick with fruit for my palate (and their whites somewhat too mineral), their new rosé (Gris Fruité) was excellent and very affordable, and I ordered two cases for delivery to Paris in the coming weeks.

You can see selected images from the holiday over at the photoblog : Accidental Cliches.

I’ve always disliked the concept of telling people how they ought to be. This includes their shape as well as their ideas.

I think most people agree with me, and when I say this I sometimes get choruses of encouragement about “the media telling us how we should look”. Unfortunately, that’s not what I mean.

I consider the media to be a demand-driven environment. We consume what we want, and if we spend all our time obsessing over stick-thin models, we only have ourselves to blame when our perception of attractiveness alters as a consequence. I don’t buy into the “media conspiracy to make us all insecure in our bodies”.

So when I say that I don’t like the idea of telling people how they ought to be, what I’m actually referring to is the new trend in countries that tend towards nanny-statism to regulate what size models are allowed to be if they’re going to model clothes. I’m astonished that elected or appointed officials think they have a role in deciding the shape and size of people on catwalks.

While the debate about what a “healthy” weight is and what we mean by “healthy” in the first place is probably valuable in its own right, I think that it crosses the line into an infringement of people’s free expression when authorities start mandating what weight or BMI a model is allowed to have it they’re going to be seen by the public.

Monitoring them for eating disorders is a great idea, I’m all for it – the models themselves are often young and under immense pressure to appear perfect, and sometimes that degree of body-consciousness can lead to skewed behaviours, just don’t cross the line into saying that because someone has a high metabolism and therefore appears very tall and thin, they’re no longer employable as a model. That’s not an appropriate area for the law to start regulating – to my mind.

We appear very concerned with the possibility of making people anorexic by displaying extremely thin people in the media. I understand the concern. I’m more concerned with obesity as it is statistically a much more significant problem. I would be personally very happy to see a change in our body-shape preferences towards a very “healthy” (by which I mean fit) look. If we could admire and aspire to looking like people who look good because they do lots of sport, rather than exercise huge discipline over their eating habits, that would be good, and we might get over this concept that thin is bad or good, because that’s a function of the person. But that’s probably just my personal tastes getting in the way of my reasoning.

I certainly wouldn’t advocate regulation to push the trend one way or the other – that usually backfires – you change tastes and preferences by influencing, educating and informing people, not telling them what it is permissible to look at or to believe.

Back in days of old, when the internet wasn’t even a glint in a nuclear accelerator scientist’s eye, the English-speaking world depended on the BBC World Service for its information.  Its role was huge, and its place in history is assured, especially given the importance of its broadcasts during the second world war, to families across Europe hunched over their wireless sets anxiously waiting for news of events that were to decide all their futures.  Even to this day, we associate Churchill’s voice with the dampened tones of long-wave radio transmission.

But nowadays, we don’t take the time to prepare the news properly, we just scribble and transmit.  The bastion of English that was the BBC is now somewhat eroded.  Never mind the mindless chatter on the latest reality show, they make strange mistakes even in the news..!  Using adjectives as verbs… how the mighty have fallen.

What a pointless photo in any case. It’s a still from a very poor-quality video, and you can’t tell what’s going on.

Thalys Paris-Bruxelles

If you’ve ever needed to book a plane or a train at the last minute, you’ll know how expensive that can be.

In the complex and profit-enhancing universe of yield management, travel companies make pricing decisions in a way that allows them to extract the most value from each customer based on their personal characteristics.

This is known as discriminatory pricing, and despite the obnoxious-sounding name, it’s perfectly legal, and economically helps everyone.  It means that the people who are willing to pay the most are the people who pay the most, and those who want to pay less are able to pay less, and are used to fill up the empty space to ensure that the operators of the train run as close to full capacity as possible.

The way the train, plane and other companies do this is by setting up a payment structure based on certain rules that allow people to self-select into the category of price that they want, without ever being aware of it.  Once you know how this works, and with a little effort, forward planning and creative economic behaviour, you can easily access the best deals.

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The Cape from Table Mountain

I feel unjustifiably ungrateful.

I’m so lucky to live in Paris with its rich cultural, artistic and architectural heritage, but returning from Cape Town, the most obvious features are the disagreeable interactions with the natives and a confrontational undertone to many situations. It’s strangely miserable here. What’s going on?

Perhaps it’s the climate, or maybe something to do with the city itself, but in Cape Town I felt as though people were genuinely happy to be there. When someone would serve me a drink in a restaurant, drive me somewhere in their taxi, give me directions in the street or say goodbye after I’d paid at the counter in a shop, they’d always leave me with a positive impression. The same cannot, regrettably, be said of most of my recent experiences in Paris. Read the rest of this entry »

An indirect route...

How big is Africa? Big enough that if you have to fly from Europe to the southern tip of the African continent, you’d rather do it in a straight line.

No such luck for me. I’m going in a few days via Dubai, and since I’m doing it on my own dime, and the seats are already overbooked due to the Indaba  mining congress happening in Cape Town, I’m going in economy. Hurray for me, 16 hours in the air and 22 hours total travel time in a space that would be considered inhumane for the transport of, say, a goat.

I was looking at the map generated on the left from Google Maps, and it struck me that Mali looked like it was about the size of France. I’ve lived in Mali, and it’s more than double the size of France, so I was a little curious.  I also remembered a fantastic graphic that illustrates the true size of the African Continent in all its glory, which I now share with you. Read the rest of this entry »

Trees in the mid-winter

Once a year, a group of old school friends get together for a weekend of skiing in Austria, at the invitation of one of us who takes it upon himself to organise this very entertaining trip every year.

Apart from the benefit of seeing old friends, enjoying good food and conversation, and having the opportunity to do some sport, I’ve always found that going either to the ocean or to the mountains satisfies some deeply-seated need in the human psyche.  After two days of skiing in the freezing cold, with 360-degree views of the mountains and a blue sky from horizon to horizon, you feel refreshed in some hard-to-define way that goes beyond the mere fact that it’s ten Celsius below and your equipment isn’t up to the challenge.

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Is this where you want to be?

The train stops in the tunnel on the way to work, chipping away another moment of your life that is lost forever. Five minutes later, an announcement telling you there’s a problem crackles over the speakers. Several people sigh as though that was disappointing. As though they hadn’t figured out that there was a problem all on their own. The smell of your fellow passengers is almost stronger than the stale smell of overused train carriage. It’s hot, even though it’s winter, and a single trickle of sweat can be felt, making its way down your spine. In a moment, your shirt will begin to stick to your chest. The girl on the other side of the carriage looks like she might be about to throw up. Sadly, all this brings to mind is the length of the subsequent delay as the system grinds to a halt because of a sick passenger. You turn up the volume on your MP3 player. Anything to pretend you’re somewhere else.

Is this where you want to be? Read the rest of this entry »

A lion in the Forbidden City

It’s freezing cold in the Hall of Heavenly Purity. How the emperors managed to maintain their dignity in the middle of winter in these huge open spaces I have no idea.

After wandering around the Imperial Palace in Beijing for a couple of hours (and I’ve barely seen half of it), I’m finding that the spectacular visual feast is more than just a photo opportunity – it’s good food for introspection.

Standing in a place like this breaks the illusion that we are the lead character in our own little drama.  We’re small actors in a cast of billions, and those of us who manage to get enough distance from our own little existence will be the only ones to really understand the story of our times.  It’s hard to see the whole stage when you’re constantly under the illusion that you’re at the center of it.

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No more alcohol

I don’t like New Years resolutions, but I am subject to the December excesses.  As a consequence, I am ringing in the New Year with a month during which I abstain – more or less – from alcohol and caffeine. It’s quite likely that my twisted mind decides on this course of action in December so as to jettison guilt as I contemplate the third massive meal in as many days, and the several that are to come between the middle of the month and the beginning of January. Having done this several times, I highly recommend it. A month is a perfectly achievable target for giving up alcohol, and although I am not fanatical about the health benefits of going teetotal, but there is a difference between not drinking between two weekends, and not drinking for 30 days.  You feel it when you fall asleep and when you get up in the morning, and it’s a good feeling to rediscover if you, like me, are a non-abusing but nevertheless frequent drinker.

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