I was recently given a bike for my birthday (thanks Fay!). In an effort to improve my general well being and perhaps settle here in London a little better, I have decided to try and commute to work via bicycle. All through my childhood and teenage years, through uni and right up until I started working - bicycles were my primary mode of transport. So I am not a complete novice. Even so, the cold weather here, the darkness and the busy streets are a major deterrent. Yesterday (Saturday), I went and bought a bunch of accessories: wind jacket, gloves, shorts (not those tight ones) thermal t-shirt, lights, lock, helmet and pump. Yes, it was all very expensive, but I figure that if I don’t make it as easy on myself as possible - I won’t do it. And some of these things are kind of necessary.

I also did some other prep work. I got appropriate access on my pass at work to enter the car park and showers.. and I did some online research to find the best path from West Hampstead to London Wall. Google maps gives a decent path, but it’s really hard to tell how good these are for cycling if you don’t know the roads. I have been travelling by tube for the past six months and definately have no clue about traffic conditions. As it turns out, cycling is quite a highly regarded and supported mode of transport around here. Go the greens!

Anyway, today (Sunday) I decided to go for a test run. It took me an hour and a half to get to work and an hour back… and now I am knackered! And it was bloody cold! It really shouldn’t take that long… a lot of the time was due to the fact that I had to keep stopping to look at the map.. and took wrong turns.. and a couple of weird things that I didn’t expect. I think in fact, that if i measure a straight line from home to work - it’s only 8-9 km’s! But the map from TFL tends to divert you (some times up hills!) so that you avoid busy roads. One road that I couldn’t find - ended up not being a road, but a canal. That was kind of pleasant.. ducks, narrow boats - and I actually saw a lock in use. Not some thing you get to see every day! (well maybe if you live there).

It all actually started to look kinda nice. How do you explain that urban kind of beauty? Where there are old crappy buildings.. rusty machinary and just old looking stuff? Today I think I began to appreciate some of that urban beauty that London has. Maybe “urban beauty” isn’t exactly the right expression.. but maybe you know what i mean.

After a shower and a bit of a rest this afternoon, I noticed that I had some ripening bananas on the kitchen bench. What else was there left to do but make banana bread? It’s in the oven now.

Went to Barcelona a couple of weekend’s ago. It’s a beautiful city and I loved it. There are great juxtapositions of old and new, techy and artsy. As soon as I stepped out from the plane at Barcelona airport, I immediately sensed a different pace to that of London. Even the airport itself had a sense of newness and space. I have never seen marble floors in an airport before! The city feels very stylish. There are statues everywhere and many buildings have ornate decorations.

In many ways it reminded me of Sydney (my home town) - though perhaps there was a lot more depth. Sydney obviously can’t compete with the amount of history (and arguably culture) in these old European cities… Well I am assuming that Barcelona is old.. I really should look up a little bit of history about the place. And maybe the people are more stylish in Melbourne than Sydney… But there was definately a familiar feel about the place.

Interestingly, some of the similarity extended to things like the airport and tourist areas.. I wonder how many of these similarities are byproducts of Olympic development. The summer Olympics was in Barcelona in 1992, Sydney 2000. Maybe one day i’ll visit Atlanta (1996) to see if the trend holds.

I’m pretty excited about stumbling across this:

http://video.google.com.au/fa.html

I have long maintained that Australian film (and documentary) often has a quirky, unique quality.

I’m keen on checking some of these out in a little more detail… might report back later

Here’s an interesting perspective of the universe.

A friend just sent this to me: Meat, Terry Bison

In so many different ways, on so many different levels - we think about things from our own perspective. I guess it’s only natural.

Anyway, I guess the story has a pretty common theme - there is way more out there than we can possibly comprehend. We are but a small insignificant spec. It’s is a pretty cool piece.

I was just reading an article about the “hotmail” name (www.cnet.com.au).

I have long disliked the name “hotmail” .. anyway - soon it seems that we will be able to get “live.com” email address. Which of course led me to go and have a snoop at www.live.com.

Spooky! I reckon this looks a lot like Google