The second leaving do within a week. This time it was for Ivan, the only remaining Italian in the office (of the original group that came over four years ago). Like Bertrand, he will continue to work for Sun but from his own country. Quite quiet in the office, one gets to know the real Ivan once he has a beer in is hand. I asked him what he’d miss most about Spain… “The Mahou”. On that note I feel this post should be dedicated to Gareth, as he would have loved to have been there. Anyway, it was a…
First off apologies to my sister. It was good to see yourself and Simon over once again last weekend. Its a shame I wasn’t really able to relax properly as I’m a bit overwhelmed with all the things I’ve got to do at the moment. Back to the topic of this post, last night we were out for Bertrand’s leaving do. Bertrand is one of the French engineers in the office and the evening did feel very French. Possibly due to the masses of bottles of wine on view behind the bar and all these people speaking French around me.…
I’ve not put any real posts up here for the best part of 20 days days. That is due to a combination of lazyness, illness, busyness and general procrastination. I’m not going to bore you with 3 weeks worth of an update, but in short I’ve had supurb Italian food over at Angelo and Fernanda’s place. I’ve had a visit from Anthony (who took his first holiday in far too long) and Cathy & Simon who are visiting Madrid for the fourth time. Otherwise I’ve been very busy with many things world wide web. A few changes to this site…
With Google buying out YouTube this week just shows how big this internet video revelation is. I’ve seen so many good links lately. Far too many to post, so instead here’s a collection of videos similar to something I’ve been playing about with over the last couple of years; Stop gap animation. I’ve had a few good results, but nothing as good as these: Clifton Suspension Bridge 1 week of art Ballon Festival A day in the life…
Over the last year I think I’d forgotten how much I love music and how much it does for me. Just tuning into the radio more and listening to some new albums has left me feeling great. On Sunday night I took Espe down to Cafe Central for a bit of Jazz. We were treated to a performance by an Argentinian singer and accompanying band, who were later joined by two guest singers, each of which had stunning voices capable of bringing out emotions in people. Amazing stuff. While on the topic of music, for those that don’t know, it…
I meant to post this up last week. I listen to Gilles Peterson’s BBC Radio 1 show most weeks, but last week’s show really was something else. With music from the likes of Karizma, The Heritage Orchestra and Ben Westbeech I was hooked… Then came Zero DB. Wow! It’s been a while since music has moved me physically, especially in my own front room. Top marks to these boys. Their best track had to be a remix they’d put together of a track called El Fantasma de la Libertad. Filthy beats and heavy bass lines, but by far the best…
This post was originally called Rickshaw Run Meet and was half written until last night. I’ve had a pretty shitty week, after the disaster that was the Rickshaw Run meeting that I organised and then several immensely busy days at work. I found myself being stitched with cases continuously ‘cos everyone else in my team is scared on taking cases on a particular range of products. Where would they be without me? Anyway, on a positive note, I spent last night with Alberto, Pete, Leo, Liz and Paula in a kind of post Mongol Rally meet up. We started in…
Despite an relatively cool summer for Madrid in August, once into September the temperature shot up into the 30s again. Highest official recording this week was 39 I think. This made sleeping difficult again, but last night we were treated to a spectacular storm. It is raining again now and it has dropped to a reasonable 28 degrees. Seeing lightening flash across the skies, I couldn’t resist trying to get some pics with lightening forks in them. This is something I’ve been wanting to do ever since seeing some spectacular storms in Austria as a kid. Once again, the Canon…