Lost in Translation

Here are a few more things which have caught my eye in the last week or so.  I regret that the picture quality is a little suspect for some of these, but I tend to rely on a basic camera phone, rather than dragging my Canon 20D all over the place.  I hear Kev wincing at my admission, when he routinely lugs around cameras and lenses and rarely misses an opportunity.  In my defence, I’m usually on a dodgy bike with a 2-year-old trying to steer with his feet, so I can do without the extra responsibility of photographic equipment.

Anyway, I rather like the look of this advertisement:

Whereas, I hate the look of this place:

It’s a brand new building in Zhubei with some of the most hideous decoration and embellishments you could possibly imagine.  It simply has no place in this city, in my humble opinion.  This, on the other hand, is exactly the sort of thing I want to see on restaurants if I am to be tempted inside:

And this is exactly what I want to see on scooters (the small-print, not the battle scars):

I love the fact that the image features a bloke with red hair and blue eyes.  A native, he ain’t.

Here’s another slightly perplexing tag-line, used by a major drinks franchise chain:

I’ve saved my favourites until the end.  We’ve come south for Chinese New Year with the Chens, so the boy and I went out on the bike in Kaohsiung this morning (here we are)

and happened to do a short spin through the grounds of the Museum of Fine Art; never mind Salvador Dali (exhibition currently on view), they seem to have turned the development of warning signs into a fine art.  In reverse order of sheer quality, I give you:

I, for one, would pay good money to see somebody worshipping in such a fashion, unless they simply happen to be followers of that rather irritating British diver, Tom somebody or other.  This one is slightly more, erm, surreal (Dali would approve?):

I have it on good authority (read: Goooooooooogle) that qigong is “a Chinese system of physical exercises and breathing control related to tai chi”, but I have yet to ascertain the risks I face on encountering such activity.  These two, however, pale into insignificance when compared to the sign I want adopted all over the world.  I give you:

Check the small-print – it’s not grafitti.  The adoption of such language on this particular type of sign may be just what we need to get through to the selfish, lazy, ignorant arseholes who need to have it explained to them that a pile of putrid pooch poop should be removed appropriately.  It reminds me of this, which came to my notice through Twitter a while back.  Gotta love that Aussie style:

That is all, except for this rather wonderful song about words:

Mountains, roadworks, seaweed, a mirror and a TWOC

I’ve tried to make a point of capturing a few more images during the past few days.  I realise that for the hard of reading, more pictures = more attention.  Furthermore, as I’m a bit of a lazy git, what with a picture painting a thousand words and all that, I can save myself hours on the old QWERTY.

Let me begin with the boy’s first felony.  He took a shine to a rather spiffing Lamborghini and promptly relieved its owners of said Italian loveliness.  Exhibits A & B, your honour:

I believe this is known as a TWOC in police-speak.  No doubt Dan will correct me if necessary.

On the way out to the scene of this heinous crime we passed some roadworks.  We’d have crashed into the truck if it hadn’t been for this chap:

This is a pretty standard device on the roads here.  The best bit is that the arms wave, but I think he could do with a sandwich or a bowl of noodles.

The journey home found us getting thirsty, so we stopped for some banana milk (cue Lizzy) and a packet of seaweed crisps.  We did share them, but the boy was too busy to photograph his dad:

I know it’s seaweed, but the photograph in the middle reminds me of a line in this:

Spinach in your teeth (@1:42) is definitely not a good look, however cute you may be.

Yesterday was quite warm, so I set off reasonably early for my weekend ride.  I followed the river up to Hengshan and then crossed the bridge before starting to climb the mountain.  This is before the painful bit, looking at where I’m heading and back down the river to where I’ve just been:

As I started the climb, I spotted another cyclist just ahead; I had him pegged at about twenty seconds in front, but I could not close the gap, and after twenty minutes I simply had to sit up and creep up the final few hundred metres.  I stopped at the junction, scoffed a banana, downed a bottle of Pocari Sweat (yes, that is the name of a sports drink – Japanese, I think?) and tried to capture the moment on digital celluloid:

A welcome, fast descent awaited, marked by this bridge at the bottom.  An old boy was walking along the centre line for some reason; perhaps he doesn’t like heights?

The views either side made the pain of the climb worthwhile, and I still had a long steady descent along the valley to come.

This was a timely reminder that you never quite know what is around the next corner:

Actually, it’s usually dogs just wandering around.  You can never be sure what they are going to do, so I always prepare for a sprint should the dastardly mutts suddenly turn and give chase.  (I must have passed hundreds in recent weeks: just two have decided to have a little dig, but no contact made with my flesh as yet.  I still get that cold feeling and goosebumps when I fear that a dog is going to start ripping chunks out of my calf.)

Other hazards include pretty much anyone who happens to be on the road.  Not far from home yesterday, some old bloke decided to get on his scooter and pull out into the road with nary a glance.  I anticipated that he may well do this, but he kept on going, right across the lane into the space at which I was heading at about 25 mph (*cough* slightly downhill and a following wind *cough*), so when I eventually arrested my speed and swerved back to the nearside, I turned to give him the most severe of my withering looks.  Of course, he was completely unfazed, unlike my shorts which had a few moments of abject terror foist upon them.  Thankfully, chamois shame was averted, dear reader.

A Month in Zhubei

We moved to our new apartment on New Year’s Eve.  Plenty of fireworks to welcome us, although Christopher isn’t a fan.  He’s really going to need a lot of cuddling come Chinese New Year in a week or so.  In spite of the date, we enquired about getting an internet connection; the bloke came out and did it for us at about 8pm. Take that UK internet providers and especially you, BT-we-can-install-your-service-in-three-weeks-cos-we-can’t-be-arsed.com.

It was dark when we arrived, as we’d been to an all you can eat buffet for lunch before leaving Kaohsiung.  Slightly off topic, but that was the best buffet I have ever experienced.  Think sushi, think smoked salmon, think ham and beef carved to your requirements, think Haagen Dazs ice cream, think help-yourself Taiwan Beer on tap, think coffee, think cake…. think I feel a bit sick now.  Fan-bloody-tastic.  If you are out that way, it’s up high in one of the buildings at Kaohsiung Arena – about £20 a pop, I think, but well worth it.  We weren’t even paying. (I’ll try to find a link)

Anyway, it was dark.  Across the road we could make out a building site.  We are on the 12th floor (or 11th in English parlance as the ground floor here counts as the 1st floor) with a great view.  I’ve been taking a picture every day:

A few observations: hard hats required but hi-viz jackets are nowhere to be seen and I don’t think they insist on steel toecaps.  The job still gets done without too much fuss.  They work every day.  They stop for lunch, but I don’t see tea-breaks.  The scaffolding is modular and very fragile and flimsy looking, but it seems to work okay.  There are lots of women working on the site.  I’ve yet to hear any wolf-whistling.  Christopher loves seeing the diggers, cranes and concrete mixers.  DIGGER!  MIXER!  He’s now obsessed with this:

Such building sites are dotted all over this part of Taiwan.  The High Speed Rail station is about three miles away and it has seemingly spawned a massive development process with high-rise, high-value apartment blocks wherever you look.  A look on Goooooooogle earth shows imagery from 2003 – mostly farmland.  Unrecognisable today.  I wonder how much steel and concrete has been added to the landscape in the last ten years?  I wonder who will buy all of these apartments?  As far as I can make out, £300k is not an unusual asking price, even for a relatively modest gaff near the freeway.  Then again, I visited a chap at his home this week.  We’d met in one of the countless parks where parents take their children for a stint of R&R.  He invited me and the boy for lunch, having told me that he’s retired (age 42).  He lives in a lovely home (a new 4 storey house, unusually, not an apartment) with his wife and two children (6 and 2).  They have a live-in Indonesian maid.  His wife works in the Science Park – 8.30 am to 11pm, Monday to Friday.  What kind of a life is that?  This is a world about which I know nothing, it seems.

I’ve had a week of good cycling.  Twice out into the mountains and once with a group from Hsinchu. Solo, out into the mountains just east of here last weekend I clocked five hours, 73 miles and 6,274 feet of climbing.  On the group ride on Tuesday evening (8 ’til 10) I clocked another 37 miles, much of it in the high twenties (mph), peaking at 32mph.  Some of these boys are quick and I’m thinking of winter miles, so it was rather painful, but still enjoyable.  In the mountains I took a couple of snaps to give you a flavour of what there is to contend with:

 

The road may well not be there when you round that bend a little too quickly, but some kindly gentleman will probably have provided boulders to arrest your speed and square your rims prior to the descent.

The views can be rather lovely.  Not one of the best, but I happened to be stopped to allow my rims to cool down a bit.

In a land of bamboo, what on earth were they thinking when they decided that fake bamboo fencing was a good look?  I reckon this is up there with some of the naffest of the naff, with naff paintwork to accentuate the naffness.  Did I mention that I think they are naff?

I learnt recently that I can take my Halifax pension already.  God, I feel old.  It was a nice surprise, though.  Not enough income on which to live, but I figure it is a good idea to take it from June (in spite of the major reduction for taking it early) as I feel less and less inclined to return to the proverbial nine-to-five any time soon.  That said, taking care of a 2 year old is plenty work enough for this grumpy old pensioner-to-be, so that last comment may have been a bit previous.

I return to the UK for a while in February.  Things to sort out; not sure how I will cope on my own again.  The boy is growing and developing so rapidly, I fear missing those precious one-off, moments but I really fear him learning more bad habits while being spoiled by his granny.  I shall return with a big stick and a cattle-prod.

Are you listening, boy?  You have been warned.

Daddy.

x

(Another) Englishman Abroad

Unlike so many reality television participants of recent years, I really have been on a journey – Barrow Upon Soar to Oswestry to Manchester to Amsterdam to Hong Kong to Kaohsiung.  It took quite a while, but I’ve pretty much forgotten it already.  Indeed, I’m already just 3 weeks away from my return flight.  Anyway, luckily for you avid consumers of these intermittent ramblings I made some notes and took a few photographs in order that I might share some of the delights, disappointments and disasters of [Julie Walters voice] the journey [/Julie Walters voice].

In truth, it was rather mundane and unremarkable; I’ve done similar journeys many times, but this one came at the end of a couple of months of separation from my family, and following one of the most difficult times in my life, packing up and selling off the contents of our house and home of the past three years.

It began with dad dropping me at Manchester Airport.  I was much too early, so I had time to kill.  I asked at the Information Desk if I could get a wireless connection to use my laptop for a while; the woman looked at me as if I’d asked for the name of the manager of the Spudulike in Penzance.  The short flight to Schiphol was memorable only because the economy class cabin crew were not what you’d expect, being as they were, three women of about my age.  I thought trolley dollies were pensioned off at thirty.  On the long-haul to Hong Kong, they were more stereotypically young and blonde, but there was still one old stalwart apparently pushing her final few trollies before a well-earned(?) retirement.

Once in Amsterdam, more time to kill following an announced delay of one hour thanks to the inclement weather.  We finally took to the air two hours late, blamed in part on the need to have the plane de-iced before getting on the runway.  That was a first for me in forty-odd years of flying.  It wasn’t all bad news.  Enquiries about having a seat with extra leg room revealed that KLM wanted a (relatively) obscene number of Euros for the privilege, so I declined their offer.  It was a fine decision, as I was one of the last to board and determined that a polite question/cheeky grin/standing on tiptoes scenario may pay dividends in the seating department.   Although I was hoping to be shunted upstairs, realistically the best I could hope for was exit row.  One left!  Middle seat, but EXIT ROW nonetheless.  Ten hours would be just about bearable.  (In fact, the chief steward type person announced that the flight would be approximately 10 hours and four minutes.)  Here’s my view:

As with most long-haul flights, hours of tedium are disrupted by meal breaks.  KLM did us proud.  Never before have I had such an activity-based meal on an aeroplane.  Two, yes, two duck pancakes with spring onions and hoisin sauce, just like they serve in Chinese restaurants at a fiver a pop.  Here’s the second one just before the rolling and scoffing:

The entertainment was a little underwhelming, with the exception of some of the CDs on the system.  The Old Grey Whistle Test, 40th Anniversary edition seemed an excellent choice, featuring as it does the two greatest Dutch bands/tunes ever.  Hocus Pocus by Focus;  Radar Love by Golden Earring.  In truth, I probably can’t name another Dutch band or recording, but I defy anyone to suggest that these are bad records.  Either way, they remind me of the dormitory at school in the mid seventies; the source of my musical education.  Other good stuff on the CD player included the new Vaccines album (very good) and the latest from Bobby Womack (very, very good).

Here we are not far out of Hong Kong:

Hong Kong airport continues to amaze me.  I still walk around gawping at the architecture and wondering at the scale of a place that has its own mini-MRT system in the depths of the building.  Here’s a really crappy picture of a view from the travellator on which I have to walk simply to enjoy that feeling of float-walking.  Why would you stand still on one of these?  One of my life’s simple pleasures.

With about five hours to kill in Hong Kong, I found a nice quiet stretch of carpet and blagged an hour or so of quality sleep before waking up a little peckish and thirsty.  I tracked down a coffee shop where I spent some old $US and received change in new $HK.  Still not quite sure how that works, but glad that it does.

It’s only an hour and a bit on from there to Kaohsiung, on a flight where I featured as one of very few westerners, and we landed on schedule just before 11pm.  Mr and Mrs Chen awaited my arrival in their new Toyota Corolla Altis; Mrs T was at home with master T.  A long-overdue good night’s sleep was moments away.  I’ll have about eleven weeks of Taiwanese family, food, weather and a bit of cycling before I have to do it all again in reverse.

Sorry, there were no disasters.

In case you are not familiar with these tunes, sit back and enjoy:

(Now that’s what I call a bass line)

(Yodeltastic!)

I Saw a Sign

I mentioned in a previous post that I would let you have some examples of how English is sometimes used and mis-used out here.  Normally, I see something which makes me smile and I just walk/ride on by, without thinking of sharing my joy/amusement/amazement/confusion, but I’ve had a phone in my pocket recently and happened to focus the (rather inadequate) camera upon these.  I’ll add more in the days and weeks to come, so check back from time to time.*

I had to look twice, but my immediate thought was that this would be of limited use, unless the Second Coming is imminent and JC happens to have Zhubei on his itinerary:

I’ve walked past this place many times, but have yet to be tempted inside.  I suspect it’s the kind of thing for which people would pay good money in Brighton:

This is a really typical example of the type of thing that interests me most about the use of Taiwanesenlgish.  I really cannot see how these words add anything to a 50cc scooter:

Slightly off topic, but another thing I saw for the first time yesterday; a woman wearing a full-face motorcycle helmet riding her bicycle.  It barely registered, to be honest, and I felt no compunction to reach for the camera.  I see so many unusual things in my daily comings and goings that it’s becoming more difficult to raise an eyebrow, however, I do love the extremes.  A couple of days ago I witnessed a whole-family-on-a-scooter-scenario (plus dog, plus shopping) and thought (as I usually do) about how the Daily Fail would go into melt-down if such a thing happened on a road in the UK.  The point is that it was such a stark contrast with what I’d noted earlier… two Porsche Panameras (you know, the really ugly ones) within about 60 seconds of each other.  In a city full of Chelsea, sorry, Taipei Tractors, such exotica exist on every other street corner (I saw a Ferrari and two Maseratis the other day, not to mention the Audi S5).

EDIT: Now, would you Adam and believe it?  The boy and his mum have just got back from the shop where the boy had just spent 15 minutes road testing every toy car, lorry and train on the shelves.  Guess which one he chose?  Only the bleedin’ Porsche Panamera.  What are the odds…? Evidence, m’lud:

(And no, his mum couldn’t possibly have influenced his decision – she wouldn’t know a Porsche, let alone a Panamera, if it jumped out of her soup and bit her on the arse.)

* I feel I ought to stress that I am not taking the proverbial, here.  For me, this is actually one of the things that makes Taiwan so unique, so interesting, so fascinating.  It continues to struggle with its own identity, but it thrives on its own terms, using its own methods, oblivious to what some stuffy old white man may think.

Cycling in Taiwan

I have to admit, since I arrived on 6th December, I’ve not ridden my bike anywhere near as often as I had hoped.  One decent ride out of Kaohsiung with four others on the 29th December, memorable for a pretty grim trek to get out of the filthy air of the city followed by about 1000 feet of uninterrupted climbing, fixing two chains (Shimano, obv’) and a total distance of 50 miles in three and a half hours (but 5.25 hours door to door – i.e. a fair bit of waiting around.)  One of the lads took a few photographs:

Well, I say lads.  The two Taiwanese chaps here are both recently retired naval officers; both are 51 years old but neither have been riding very long.  I reckon they did pretty well to get up the climb as quickly as they did.  I appear to have swapped my own legs with those of a stork.

This is my wife’s cousin’s husband – also a naval officer, but still serving.  I told him it was sacrilege to have Shimano on a Bianchi; I should have stressed that the chains are made of chocolate.  I’m also trying to persuade him to stop smoking.

We stopped here for a breather and repairs; I didn’t feel the need to offer any prayers.  It is a MASSIVE temple.  What you see here is probably about the equivalent of a garden shed when compared with the full size of the site.  We (me and the Chens) visited it a few years ago – it is so large that you wouldn’t believe me if I tried to describe it properly.

Anyway, here’s the ride profile, courtesy of my Garmin Edge 800:

Here in Zhubei, the weather has been so grim for much of the time and I didn’t bring any winter cycling gear, I have hardly had any opportunities to ride in comfort.  I did manage a nice ride on Saturday.  The profile was not dissimilar to the one above:

According to my GPS, I climbed for over 12 miles on leaving my front door.  I can’t think of anywhere in the UK where I’ve done that.  To be fair, the incline was hardly noticeable for the first 10 miles as I simply followed the river, but on the climb proper, up through a rather lovely orange-growing area, I could have done with a smaller gear at times.  A compact chainset may be a worthwhile investment if I’m going to be out here for a while.  The descent was pretty hairy in places – lovely smooth tarmac, but not always still clinging to the hillside.  Mental note: landslides appear to be an issue.

The good news is that my local bike shop (LBS in cycling parlance) is much better than I could have expected.  It’s a Giant store, but it is not exclusively Giant.  The proprietor, Erick, has some interesting stuff in there and he seems to know his way around the spanners.  Best of all, Campagnolo kit can be seen on frames in his store.  All is well with the world.

As a final point, here is my new daily ride:

Me and the boy get around this city on two wheels now, whenever we need to go more than a block or two.  It ain’t big enough, but we manage.  The sharp-eyed among you will have noted that it’s none other than the Dianar-X, City Sprinter.  Just remember, envy is not an attractive personal characteristic.

Formulating Formal Feelings of the Former Formosa

I have a flight booked to return to England on the 19th of next month, due in Manchester on the 20th.  I hear it’s pretty cold over there at the moment.

I think this is my 6th visit to Taiwan, but it’s the first time I have been cold out here (unless it’s been with the assistance of the ubiquitous air conditioner).  Frankly, the weather here during this visit has been really unexpected (by me, if not the locals).  In fact, here in Zhubei, some 170 miles north of Kaohsiung, it has been pretty bizarre.  It has changed from several days of cold drizzle, when I’ve clothed myself in all four of my jerseys and my cycling gilet just to keep warm – indoors – to a solitary day of clear blue skies and temperatures in the 70s, then back again to uncomfortably cold and windy for another few days.  Then a few days of shorts and T-shirts; then back to every-layer-out-of-the-wardrobe for a while.  As I write, we’re reaching the end of three days of sun-hat-advisable weather on the bounce.  Yes, I know it’s winter, but I hadn’t appreciated just how cold it can be.  I should’ve packed a decent coat.

Taiwan continues to surprise and fascinate me.  A few days ago I experienced two firsts.  A bloke in the park taking his pig for a walk.  This would have been slightly less noteworthy had it not been in a city centre, largely concrete with a bit of water in the middle type of park.  Later, I was in our flat taking a leak when we were struck by a minor earthquake.  I thought at first that I’d stood up too quickly and was just a little dizzy, then I looked to my right to see the shower door wobbling.  Again, this would have been slightly less noteworthy had I not been on the 12th floor.  I dread to think what a major quake would feel like up here.

Taiwan also continues to irritate me.  If you’ve read much of my other stuff, it’ll come as no surprise that it’s the road behaviour of your average Taiwanese driver which causes me most grief.  Undoubtedly the rules of the road here - such as they exist at all – take some getting used to, but things seem to work.  My main gripe is that nobody will WAIT; not even for a few seconds.  If there’s a gap, someone will fill it, even if it brings no advantage and by filling it someone else’s progress is impeded.  I can be walking along, pushing the boy in the Stokke, and I need to pass a car by walking into the road; said car’s driver suddenly decides it’s time to move off, but he can’t move into the road as there’s a constant stream of cars.  He’ll still edge forward, blocking my passage (ooh, err missus) and I’ll be exposed to greater risk for longer than if he’d just waited for all of five seconds to allow me to walk by.  Furthermore, while cycling, it’s pretty much guaranteed that cars will pass me and immediately turn right across my path instead of simply backing off for a few seconds and allow me to proceed across the junction.  Bearing in mind that cities here are invariably on a grid system, this is a very real problem on the corner of every block.  I need to remember that everyone here seems to drive on the wrong side of the road.

I’ve yet to have a conversation with another westerner since I’ve been in Zhubei, while in Kaohsiung I only spoke with Kevin and Paul, two British artists who’d come out to work with Ming.  There are a few white faces around, but I rather like being in the minority.  One of the real wonders of Taiwan (for me) is that there is a great deal of written English to be seen – on road signs, on vehicles, on clothing and on business premises.  More often than one might imagine, the words found on shops and clothing don’t really make sense and it’s as if the use of some form of English is an essential element of any business idea, whether on a shirt-front or shop-front.  At this stage, I really should have some examples, photographic or otherwise.  Stick with me and check back soon.

I spend all day, every day, with my son, Christopher.  He’s nearly two years old.  The other day, my morning consisted of a couple of hours playing with the boy and his friend in and around the lobby of our apartment block.  Here they are posing:

Again, perhaps nothing so unusual there, but I should point out that the boy’s friend is cared for by his grandmother because both parents work (ridiculously) long hours.  Granny is (proper) Chinese, in the sense that she is from Shanghai.  I have been told that granny is 70 years old.  Granny speaks no English.  I speak no Chinese.  You can imagine that our time together, each chaperoning our respective charges, is fraught with difficulties.  Here’s all four of them:

In fact, we seem to do just fine, as long as I remember that the universal sign language for eating – i.e. miming of knife and fork (think Basil Fawlty…I forget which episode) – is NOT the universal sign language for eating.  Chopsticks are held in one hand and rice is scooped from the bowl, stupid!  I could not have imagined that at 50 years and 7 months I would be babysitting a child in a country where I cannot speak the language, but I just about get by.  It’s difficult at times, but what else can I do?

The cakes here are something else.  Bakeries are dotted around the cities and fresh pastries and breads are available virtually around the clock.  I’m never quite sure what I’m going to find in my chosen bun – the varieties are infinite and the filling may be sweet or savoury, whether the ‘outer’ is sweet or not.  I could get fat.  I’ll keep riding the bike.

I think there are some pretty wealthy people here in Zhubei.  I’d hazard a guess that most of them will be involved in the construction industry in some way.  Everywhere you look in Zhubei there is another building going up.  Immediately opposite our apartment block, another new building is just rising above ground level – there are probably already three basement levels hidden form view.  Work goes on every day, but nightfall brings peace and quiet.  Concrete mixers almost outnumber the scooters.

Oh bugger, it’s another digger!  When I was a lad, I used to say bugger rather a lot.  I don’t remember, but I think my mum may have told me so, maybe once or twice.  Bugger.

Bugger.  Bugger.  Bugger.  Bugger.

Bugger.  Bugger.  Bugger.  Bugger.

Bugger.  Bugger.  Bugger.  Bugger.

Christopher is obsessed with all varieties of digger.  Digger.

Digger.  Digger.  Digger.  Digger.

Digger.  Digger.  Digger.  Digger.

Digger.  Digger.  Digger.  Digger.

What is it with Turners and ‘gger?  This city is full of bloody diggers.

I dunno about buggers.

2013 – New Year: New Songs

Time to kick off this year’s favourites with a little beauty:

Live session by the band on Marc Riley’s show last night – catch it here for the next 6 or 7 days:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01psj9n

Jarvis & Co. back on good form:

And Bowie returns with an instant classic:

A new name for me:

Laura Marling doing what she does:

Where Can I Go? [can't find it at the moment...]

Daft Punk

Oooh! I like the sound of this:

Follow you, follow me…*

The other day, something pretty exciting happened.  I woke to find a message from Twitter in my inbox telling me that David Gedge is now following me.  I assume it is because I tweeted about this song the other day:

An underrated classic.  I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

It made an immediate impact on me and it remains the only recording I have ever pre-ordered.  It also has associations tinged with sadness as it was released around about the time of the death of long-time Wedding Present fan and all round hero, John Peel.

*And there you were thinking that it was going to be about a mediocre Genesis track.  A fair assumption, as my subtitle comes from one of the great Gabriel-era Genesis tracks.

Walking Woes

As a brief update on my previous post (http://fiftyyearsandcounting.wordpress.com/2013/01/07/open-letter-to-the-taiwanese-authorities/), here are a few examples of what is causing me problems.  Three of the four are easily fixed, while the other will take some effort.  Three of the four are within 200 metres of the front of our apartment block; I’ll document some of the more interesting paving scenarios at some future date, just in case my lawyers need evidence once I’ve twisted or broken my ankle(s). ;0)

Just to add some balance, here’s possibly the best piece of pavement I’ve come across.  The irony is that it is on a bridge over the river and is being used by nobody else; I crossed twice yesterday afternoon (so I was on the path for maybe 15 minutes in total) during my nine mile walk and saw absolutely no one on foot.  I was, however, the recipient of a thousand quizzical glances from all the scooter riders flashing past.