Dubai Trials
Interesting to see that Dubai are trialling their new T3 in much the same way as Heathrow did with T5. I’ll be curious to see if they get the same result. Somehow, I doubt it.
Biagio
Excellent little Italian place I found near Embankment and the Strand.
Plus, why is the price of hotel wifi in inverse proportion to its quality? Discuss. The Marriott I stayed in last week had unusable wifi (although the hotel was otherwise pretty good), whereas the Park Plaza this week (a.k.a cheap Radisson) has excellent free wifi (for IBMers). It’s got to be a strong factor for business travellers, yet most hotels clearly treat it as an afterthought.
Firefox 3 RC1
Normally I don’t touch pre-release software these days (apart from the IBM software I work with, of course). But I just downloaded and installed Firefox 3 RC1. And boy, Mozilla weren’t kidding - it’s noticeably faster and snappier than Firefox 2. Very impressive. For someone like me who spends a lot of time in a browser, this is just great.
Smoking at Cannes
Why don’t we see this kind of defiance of illiberal legislation more often? It’s something the French do well. In a time when vices are being outlawed left, right, and centre, I’d like to see a bit more bolshyness from the British public.
LAX…
… is as dismal as promised. JFK has definitely become my preferred transit airport (although O’Hare still has that delicious buttercrust pizza unavailable elsewhere in the world). The AA terminal here is pretty small (I think because there’s another terminal for its poor sibling, American Eagle), and since I’m stuck here for 4 hours, I’ve bought Admirals’ Club access.
McCarran
I’m sitting in the departure lounge at Las Vegas airport after attending an IBM internal conference for a week. Las Vegas is indeed as tacky as expected, and wouldn’t be first on my list of places to visit on holiday, although I’m thinking about making it part of my ‘road trip’ when I eventually get round to planning it (the short version is SF to Vegas across Death Valley, the long version is the length of Route 66 - I expect the result will be a mixture). The conference was useful, and I got to meet some folk I’d previously only interacted with online, such as the prolific blogger Dan Zrobok. The airport is also surprisingly pleasant, with fast and friendly check-in (surprising for American), short security queues, and free wi-fi (hence this post). Now all I have to do is endure the 10-hour flight (with a full plane) from LA to London. Yuck.
Gel 2008 and NYC
I returned from New York City at the weekend after having spent a week there, partly on holiday and partly attending Gel 2008. Highlights of Gel for me were:
- Attending the Sphereplay workshop - I learnt a new physical skill in about 3 hours, a concept quite novel for me! I will definitely be ordering a sphere (it’s not a ball, it’s not a ball) to keep this skill going.
- The presentations by Clay Shirky and Garrett Oliver.
- The performances of Rhett and Link - the knowingly geeky Facebook Song is pretty cool.
I’ve stuck up a few of my better photos from the conference on Flickr. I didn’t find this Gel quite as fulfilling as euroGel was, and this combined with the steep price (I pay for it myself) means I probably won’t be returning next year. It was still good fun, though.
The rest of my time in NYC was mainly spent chilling (photos to come); and doing a little shopping. I availed myself of the favourable exchange rate and willing-to-negotiate shopkeepers to buy a Canon 50mm EF lens that I’ve been hunkering after (the pictures linked to above are all taken with it). It produces nice sharp pictures and is great for portraiture.
I also managed to see both November (yet another David Mamet play; I’m addicted to his work at the moment) and Avenue Q on Broadway. The latter is wonderfully offensive and funny.
I’m back to the US in a week to attend in IBM conference in Vegas - somewhere I’ve never been. I’m looking forward to it.
Tesco Are Clever Again
I got a new Clubcard from Tesco again today. On the back of the key fob version is a phone number and and an ID number. If your cards get lost, the finder is exhorted to call the number to arrange for your keys to be returned. Who knows if it would work, but it’s an potential extra benefit for little cost to me - since I’d put the key fob tag on anyway. Ingenious.
On the way to NYC
It’s a lot of palaver to travel these days - I started my journey to NYC yesterday, and as I write, I’ve still only reached the American lounge at T3 in Heathrow (although to be fair that’s mostly down to a combination of me being cheap - no chauffered transfer on my own money - and wanting to maximise my time today in the city). Still, in about 10 hours, I’ll be in Manhattan, and I can’t wait - my first trip abroad this year without work to do (unless you count Gel, which I don’t).
2 in 2
Two good restaurants in as many days. Raunheim is yielding some worthy secrets. Restaurant Donna Maria is definitely worth a visit; a decent Italian in an area full of questionable ones.
