Working on other Blogs

So, back from the summer away. I have been brining up to date my other Blog - the Stelios goes caving blog. Next up will be a brief update of this one, including all sorts of what went on information about the summer...

Everyone seems to be OK...

Jockey checked in first praising his slothfulness which kept him from being beneath the Tavistock bus.

Then Si let me know he was safe, although he's always at work so early no nasty terrorist is going to get him at the time of day he goes to work.

Then Ali told me she was in Manchester and therefore out of harm's way and then it took the Captain most of the day to get back to me, but he's OK and so's his friend.

Phew! Not sure I know anyone else who does stuff in and around the city. Shittymess!

Four days in the queen city

So we spent four long and fun days in Istanbul / Constantinople with Korinna. I will put forward just a brief itinerary of what we saw and did in the four days with a hope to fill in more in a few days, especially after the photos are printed.

Day 1 was spent on getting to know the first hill essentially. It involved Aya Sofia / Aghia Sophia, the outside of Hagia Eirene, the ground floor and Byzantine rooms of the archaeological museum,



an unsuccessful attempt to identify what's left of one of the oldest churches in the city (in the copper workers' quarter), followed by a walk around yerebatan sarnici - the basilica cistern, the blue mosque plus hippodrome



and finally, the garden in front of the church of Sergius and Bacchus (kucuk aya sofia camii) which is undergoing pretty extensive looking renovation work.

We began day 2 with a trip to the pera and the galata tower, followed by a walk across the galata bridge to the new mosque (Yeni Camii), the Egyptian Bazaar / Spice Bazaar, where we bought a whole lot of cheap saffron. Next a taxi ride up to the Gul Camii (St. Theodosia) and a long wait for midday prayers for finish so I could have a look inside. Next up to Eyup Sultan Camii area where we learned why the little boys were wearing those funky outfits.



We tried to get into Yedikule, but were turned away on account of the rock concert going on that night, so we took a cab to the wrong Imrahor Camii, later discovering the right one was locked (St. John Studios) so we returned to Serge and Bach (rhymes with shake-and-vac) for some hookah smoking idleness.

On the third day, we made it in to Yedikule, and also went to the monastery of Constantine Lips (Molla Feneri Isa Camii) where we bumped into a mullah leading a Koranic class in the apse of one of the two churches. We then walked to the Kiz Tasi (the column of Marcian), and from there to the aqueduct of Valens, St. Polyeuctos (which was not what I had expected) and ended up having an icecream break right where Theodossios had built his agora / forum, opposite that bath house which is falling down but has the bits of column sculpture in its base. Next up was the covered bazaar,



the burnt column (Constantine's column) and a night trip to Asia by boat (return by cabbie).



The final day was more relaxed, beginning with the mosaic museum, we then went off to the Suleymaniye



via the kalendarhane mosque. At the Suleymaniye we also visited the turbes of suleyman,



his witch wife and his master architect. We then went shopping up and down the main street - the mese. We also had a walk around Binbirdirek sarnici and the myrelaion / bodrum camii environs, before finishing up at our favourite spot in the garden of Serge and Bach again for more hookah.

Exhausting stuff, oh yes.

Where have you been my blue eyed son?

And what did you see my darling young one?


Coming soon...

Long weekend

Long weekend destination. Click view image for bigger version.

More on return.

Live8

Over at w w w . P i n k F l o y d . c . o . m: "It has been confirmed that Roger Waters will join Pink Floyd to perform at the Live8 concert in Hyde Park on 2nd July."

Wow. I wander what they'll play - dare say "Money" will be on the playlist.

So we went to Marathon lake at the weekend for scrabble. My game of scrabble can be ridiculously varied and is very much dependent on getting the decent letters - something which is getting rarer and rarer...




If you know what to look for you can see the dam on the left. You can also spot the pill box over to the left there. The lake was like big-time important place during the war, and still is to a certain extent on account of the fact that it was (is) the (a) major source of the city's drinking water.

So Korinna won the scrabble match - again - with a well placed z and a well placed psi. We're probably going to go back there as it was a pleasant enough place.

Found my A-Level results

So I have found my A-Level results - which are required for getting my desmond recognised... my house must be tidier than I thought!

Back to Dersios!!!

Off tomorrow at the crack of dawn for Arcadian sinkholes.

Yay!

Recognition for Desmond

So, the time has come, almost a full ten years on from the graduation ceremony, to take my desmond to the Greek authorities and have it registered. My feelings on being awarded one need to be told at some point but it is too much to write easily and I intend today to write about why it is necessary to have the desmond acknowledged by the Greek state.

I will be making an application to the UOA to read for a Master's degree (woo!). For this to happen, I have to have a degree from a university recognized by the Greek state. Fortunately I do have one of those - the aforementioned desmond - but how do I prove it? Well, to prove it I have to go to the nice people at DIKATSA and show them my degree and a ton of other documents and then they take a year to figure out whether the fekking university which gave me the desmond is on their list of approved universities. Then I get a bit of paper saying that, yes indeedy, my degree is from a recognized Uni. They then need me to sit a bunch of exams to give me another bit of paper which shows that my degree is as well-heeled academically as the equivalent degree here. Finally, they will not be able to certify anywhere that my desmond is worth the same as a Greek degree gotten with a grade of 65%, and this because I cannot get a transcript with my grades in every piece of written work I ever did.

It was a sportsman's desmond, anyway.

Anyway - I have the dilemma of choosing whether to have the degree recognized as equivalent to a literature degree or an archaeology degree. It's a little bit of a no-brainer, really. Ah but then they get to tell me that I ain't done any papers on Byz. stuff and that I have to sit a bunch of these - which would be fun in a general educational sort of way.

So to re-cap - they can certify I have a degree with just a bunch of papers I am collecting and €120. They can certify I have a classical archaeology degree if I sit a bunch of exams. They cannot certify how good a degree it is unless my Uni breaks with standard practice and sends them transcripts that they do not make.

I am going to keep all informed about how progress with my attempts to do a Masters degree go.

Shameless plug for James Blunt

Music isn't bad, either.

Your powers are weak, old man

There has been a lot of interest in climbing at the club recently - we have this climbing wall there and had a go at traversing the three meter length of it using only the blue, or only the green holds. Needless to say, I wasn't all that good and went off and downloaded a whole bunch of stuff from Eric Hörst's site. I'd come across his book in Elias' car when we were going to Propantes and it had got me thinking. Then I bump into his site after looking for how info on training for climbing.

So one of the hints he talks about for getting started is weighted (gravity+) pull ups. He then writes, like, don't do this unless you can do five sets of fifteen pull-ups with three minute rests in between… Hmm. And then he says if you cannot do five consecutive pull-ups at all, there's something else you got to start with to build up strength.

And so, gentle reader, this is where today's title comes from. I went home, sat myself under the chin-up bar determined to do the pre-requisite five consecutive pull ups so as to be able to proceed with the training plan for building to five sets of fifteen. Up went the hands, gripping the bar and up went the legs, suspending me below the bar.

OK - so I didn't really try that hard, but it was clear that I was not going to be doing five consecutive pull-ups.

This time back in 1992, when I was just getting my release papers from the Greek Army I could probably have done the five sets of fifteen without a problem. Wouldn't it be grand to be like that again? OK, so I like have some thirteen years extra wear and tear on me and of course the whole chronic illness bollocks to deal with, but wouldn't it be just great to be 60 instead of 74 Kg, and to be able to do pull ups and to wear that favourite pair of shorts again? OK, who's with me on this? Let's set targets: by the end of the year (six month target), back to 60 Kg (lowest ever since the highest was 56 Kg, but that just ain't natural) and I want to be lithe and supple again.

In April last year I would have said, "yeah, dream on, fat-boy" but now things are different.



PS - title slightly influenced by the fact that I am going tonight to see Episode III.

Rant about my bastard foot

Not sure if this is a rant about my bastard foot or about my cow-orkers. Summer is coming again, oh yes. Summer is as good as being here. It's hot out, but the cow-orkers don't acknowledge this and so I have to sit and sweat in my office while they complain whenever the airconditioning is put into operation. Hey - I'm fucking sweating here, can't you see???

I got a vest to wear from the states - paid a shedload in customs charges for the honour of having it shipped over. Remind me to rant about customs at some point soon. It's too early in the year and in the day to need to wear it on the way to work - I usually come before the temperatures get too high. Once here though, there is a fine line between annoying the cow-orkers and suffering too much and it gets crossed at exactly this time of year and we've crossed it.

I don't mind the sweating. I don't mind the feeling exhausted so much. Both these happen anyway, from time to time. What I do mind is when my right foot goes numb because of the heat doing what it does. The numb right foot acts as a reminder. "Hello!", it says, "you're going to die. I am your memento mori, sucker!"

It's no hassle to have the foot freak out when other parts are also arsing me around too - it's expected. It's when it's the only thing wrong I get annoyed. No L'Hermittes, no other numbness or tingling - just the numb foot. Grrr.

It's the bloody heat which set it all off. All winter I was fine as a fine thing - now the summer is coming I am not looking forward to it - and it seems to be about to be a very hot one. Must go caving then, I guess.

Ping-pong

So I popped over to Romania for a little bit of courier work, not unlike the trip described here.

I haven't been in Romania for a bout three years and feel rather more rusty on the language front than I dare admit.



Anyway, I had a few chances to walk around a bit in the evening and have three little panoramas for you all. The first is the "It" building just after sundown. The House of the People as it was so grandly named by old Nic is, according to lonely planet called just "it" by the locals…



We walked through the park to the right to go eat and walked back past where Nic gave his last public appearance in December 1989:



The final pic is from the morning before setting off for the airplane again:



The town seemed cleaner and fresher, with more vitality and optimism than back in 2002 when I was here last. Things are looking up for 2007!

Clicking "View image" on the panoramas will open a slightly larger version.

and while we're at it...

Three little panoramas I photographed with my trusty Nokia phone and stitched together with autostitch, this really quite clever little programme.

Clicking on the little thumbnails will take you to a slightly larger image for each one.




There was the most amazing sky on Saturday evening - we had set out for a meal with friends of Korinna from Uni and then the Masters in London. Meeting, as usual at the cathedral, I snapped the above skyline and the rather distorted view of the entrance to the cathedral itself, which is below.





I don't like the way it totally blows the edge out of the stuff which is closer, but there is not too much that can be done. I guess I'd have to go into photoshop and spend time on the straightening of curved edges.





This one I am very pleased with, and it seems that this is the sort of shot which autostich excells in. It is a view up the street which borders the Library of Hadrian (qv) and you can make out from left to right the old mosque which is now the folklore museum, the Library of Hadrian in the centre of the frame and the Acropolis over in the distance and to the right of the image. You get a nice idea of how the Erecthion sits on the edge of the rock and sticks out.

I rather like this one - taken as it is with dusk firmly in the air and with the street sellers busying about trying to get business all along the railings.

I will try to expand on the extremely long, rather than high panoramas.

Δος ημίν σήμερον

Kneading and then waiting for the little yeast kritters to do their stuff and bloat my little loaves out of all shape and proportion is something I used to do frequently before I met Korinna. I have not done the whole making bread thing for almost two years - the last loaf I had made back then was a little after we had started going out.

Yesterday I made bread, and it was good. I managed to break the INGO workbench in the kitchen, which was obviously not designed with kneading in mind.

So here are some before and after photos, of the bread in the just kneaded, just risen and just cooked stages of life.












More coming soon...

Seven seconds

Well, here I am, at the entrance to Propantes.

text moved

Dude, where's my engine???

Bollocks!

Bollock bollocks bollocks...

Propantes

This weekend.

my caver blog has the story