Room with a view

I cycled the 20 km roundtrip to the bouldering wall only to find it inundated with screaming 10-year olds. After a long day of numbercrunching, that was the last thing I needed. I like to stumbly fall off the walls in silence ;-) So I forfeited and will go back tomorrow instead. BUT, look what spectular sights I came home to:



-views from my bedroom window-

Displacement acitivity thoughts

Has anyone else noticed that the start of Franz Ferdinand's "Eleanor get your boots on" sounds remarkably like Blur's "The universal"... or have I gone tone deaf?

Suckin' Diesel

Amsterdam and Tilburg are to be the first cities to ban Diesel cars from certain parts of the city in an attempt to keep pollution levels within check. On top of this, Terrain vehicles will no longer be granted parking permits for either of the cities, to discourage their usage. It's a move that's been waiting to happen for a while now. Although I had rather anticipated the first step to have been a raise/equalisation of Diesel and Petrol prices throughout Europe, following Britain's lead. Having said that, the rise in diesel prices in itself seems insufficient to discourage people from buying such as it is still more economical to run them than a petrol car...


Also... has there ever been ANY campaign to inform people WHY diesel cars are to be discouraged? I certainly can't remember any. So far it's been up to the individual to try and find out. Which, let's face it... is too much to ask of the general population and is a big flaw in ecogroup strategy. Feel free to refresh my memory.

Mountain Leadership Training - Aberfeldy

Seriously, where do I start? The Mountain Leadership Training was simply brilliant. I can safely say that I knew NOTHING when I started the course. I thought I did. But I didn't. However... 350 quid, a torn set of waterproofs and a lost sleepingbag later, I can quite confidently micro-navigate my way out of any (not too scary) mountain range. I was taught how to survive on cowberries, saurrel and thistlenuts (should I ever find myself with dire cravings) and I learned how to safely lower myself off a cliff "south-african" style (should there ever be a need to impress).

Personal favorite was undoubtedly the "river crossing" practice. Temperatures were just about low enough to make even the burliest bloke in our group squeal a whole octave higher than one would voluntarily chose to. High entertainment value.


I also discovered that I must be about the ONLY person in the world still relying on 15-year old gear: sleeping bag the size of a zeppelin, compass as useful as the millenium dome and a PETZL headtorch with a battery-compartment the size of a watercooler. But at -4C, I slept like a baby and although I persistently walked off my bearing by a degree or two, my watercooler-sized headtorch enabled me to spot my correct location from miles away ;-)


All in all the week's been a massive boost to my system... if only for the priceless views that construed our daily classrooms (see pics). So I've decided to start prepping for the Mountain Leadership Assessment. That means clocking up a good 40 quality mountain days in Solo or Leadership roles, practicing mountain skills and studying up on fauna&flora as well as history&geology.

Slight strategic problem tho: How am I meant to clock up those quality days whilst temporarily residing in a country that has NO features above 2 meters (apart from my cousin)? ... Guess I'll HAVE TO resign to the fact that I'll regularly have to fly out to Scotland/Austria/France in the next 4 months to practice ;-)

Nowt but bones

Wehey! Got bloggerbot working again, so expect a release of nonsense-underscored pics from me later today ;-) In the meantime, lo and behold: My Thorax!

Had a general health-check a few weeks back and managed to sneak my files home afterwards *proud grin*. Just in case anyone worries: That is NOT a growth in my stomach, but merely a tree in my garden obscuring the otherwise quite normal flow of light ;-) Also I do not suffer from Situs Inversus... I just couldn't be bothered flipping the picture the right way around... ohhhh lazy days...

Pulling Power

Yes, after a two week stint away I have managed to navigate my way back unto mainland Europe without as much as a midgie bite. Yay for me!

I shall return with a full blown account of my galavanting before too long, but am facing an afternoon of disinfection battles with an entirely defrosted fridge and freezer after a power failure whilst I was away *joy*. And there is always the fun task of hanging out one's freshly washed undies!

In the meanwhile let me leave you with some stats... The past two weeks I have had an EXTRA 300 visitors to my blog, 95% of them pulled in through "Antony Hegarty", 4% due to the mention of "Google Earth" and a measly 1% due to the lovely, underrated Sarah Beeny. What's the world come to?!?

Shuttling Off

It seems I am all packed. Again. At least... I think I am. Most likely forgot something vital such as undies or money. But oh well, it's up to some of you good people to rescue me should I get stranded without my dental floss survival kit. Why did I ever forgo the good old method of laminated packing lists?!?

I am off on a little roadtrip through the UK to visit some peeps I haven't seen in ages, and am sheduled to go on a Mountain Leadership Training course in Aberfeldy. Although this course has been something I've wanted to do ever since Fi first mentioned it to me, it's never exactly been high on my list of priorities. But I panicked at the thought of having to move away from Scotland after the break up and so it seemed the perfect excuse to have to come back to the mountains. Wehey!

In light of my plans to travel for 6 months after the PhD is finished, it is probably THE wisest decision I could ever hope to make. The course teaches navigation skills amongst other things, you see, and although most women seem to lack in the "orientation" department, I am completely devoid of a sense of direction. I am just about able to distinguish what's up and what's down but other than that, setting me loose in Asia would just as likely see me end up in Panama as it would in Moscow.

If I do not return to this Blog in two weeks time, the instructors have probably left me up on a mountain somewhere, written off as a "lost cause". Come find me. Please.

Antony Hegarty

Well chuffed this guy has hit the news. I happened upon a documentary about him a few weeks back and was totally mesmerised by his music. Good 'un!

Merchant of Venice

Flew out to Venice last Friday & arrived there ever so slightly sedated by the anti-anxiety pills I'd taken before the flight. By the time I stepped off the canalboat, I was morosely grinning at just about everything & everyone. Which is a pretty nice entrance to make, methinks. Venice is currently holding the 65th Mostra FilmFestival as well as the Biennale Art Expo so there were a lot of funky things on the go.


Dad&Mona were there for the nomination of a film Mona has editted and we were invited to join them. Although we were fairly preoccupied by the cheeky 11-month old they had brought along, we managed to get some cultural experiences under our belt, starting with a screening of Mona's film. From a perspective I've tried to keep as unbiased as possible, "Working Man's Death" is most definitely a little gem of a documentary film. It sets out to bring into focus 21st Century manual labor. Although this in itself is a seemingly dry topic, I felt they managed to portray each of the five subfeatures without being moralising. By merely documenting, the makers allowed the people in focus to bring a sense of reality to the topic which any attempted discourse would have failed to grasp. So, if the film ever makes it to a theater nearby, I would most certainly recommend a viewing.


The Biennale Art Expo itself was good fun. The Belgian pavilion seemed to have resorted to the old trick of getting its visitors slightly tipsy on free beer (Duvel) prior to the viewing of the art exhibition. A stroke of genius! :-) I was most amused by the German section though. They took a very silly take on "Contemporary Art" and it was definitely the only pavillion people walked out off in giggling fits. But the pavillion I went back to thrice, was the Australian one. They kept it simple, with an exhibition of the work of Ricky Swallow, who is a master at fine wood carvings. The pieces just screamed out: "TOUCH ME. I'M REAL"... But I managed to behave.

The highlight of the weekend by far, though, was Little Miss Shorthausen (pictured below), who managed to drag our attention away from just about anything by bursting out into highly self-satisfactory unapparent giggling fits. I shall refrain from coo-ing ;-)

Vortex of Procrastination

-PhD Comics-