Greetings and felicitations

Safely back from Octocon, which was a hoot. I think it was the best one I've ever attended, although I didn't do one-tenth of the panels and so on that I hoped to. I did attend a panel on "Gother than Thou" which was sadly lacking Storm Constantine, who had had to leave, and found myself suddenly roped in. It took all my powers of persuasion to get Cat & Nichola - which those of you who attended Infest might have met - to actually sit on the panel themselves, as 2 of only 3 of the actual panel who had turned up. It worked, though, I think.

It really benefitted from being in a proper hotel well outside of Dublin, with cheap accomodation nearby as well - since the Con hadn't sorted cheap room rates as far as I could tell. It meant that many people came and stayed over, so the evenings were much enlivened thereby. For those of us not up to paying €140 per night, the rooms in the old seminary at Maynooth Campus were perfectly acceptable (and a rather more reasonable €23 or so a night) and the location itself was splendid, with gorgeous views over large formal gardens. Which I completely failed to photograph. Quite delightful.

Also was great to see Caitriona again and we had a great time together. If only it were so pleasant with all exes!

I have now got a substantial work backlog to get rid of, which would be good, as I'm now utterly skint. Over my overdraft limit, so penniless. So I won't be around much for a few days. No time at present to comment to the feedback I have thus far received, but I have seen it and thank you all for your comments.

So, back to Norway...

Day 3: Ålesund and Molde

Polarlys, about 50km north of Rorvik, in the North Atlantic off the coast of West Norway. About 8-9 hours away from the Arctic Circle

For more than a century, Hurtigruten has been the primary link tying the northern half of Norway together. I've heard southern Europeans marvelling at "what persuades people to live 'up here'" – but we are only just leaving the Norwegian midlands. Our starting point, Bergen, is firmly in the South by local reckoning, notwithstanding that it's north of anything short of the Orkneys or Labrador. Today, the boats are not so important– although they're still used for local transport, the train line now runs through Trondheim up to Bodø, there's a motorway network spanning the entire country and many villages of only a couple of thousand people have their own airports. Life in these small northern towns is much like that of the rest of Europe now, thanks in part to the infrastructure paid for by North Sea oil.

Ålesund was once the favourite retreat of prewar Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm. He came every summer for many years to this tiny fishing community – and he was the first to come to its aid when disaster struck. In midwinter 1904, fire broke out in a fish-preserving factory by the docks – where most of town's poor women worked, the widows of fishermen lost at sea. It quickly spread thought the all-wooden town, engulfing the whole town and overnight rendering nearly 2000 people homeless – in a season when temperatures routinely drop to –20°C. The town wasn't connected by road or rail to anywhere else and no-one could afford motor vehicles; the people piled their possessions and children onto handcarts and pushed them out into the night to nearby villages and farms.
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[Geek/Blog] Humanity to others

What links Africa and the Isle of Man?

Well, Mark Shuttleworth, the first African in space, a multimillionaire due to selling his startup Thawte to Veritas. He spend some of the money on a trip up to orbit and a bit more setting up Canonical at 1 Circular Road, Douglas, Isle of Man.

And me.

Because 1 Circular Road is very close indeed to the Allen Bank, Circular Road, location of my first ever job, at CSL Delta.

I am not African - but I spent much of my childhood there.

Odd things, coincidences. [Link gacked from ukskeptic.]

Canonical make Ubuntu Linux, a streamlined user-friendly Debian-based desktop Linux. And it's free. As in beer.

Been catching up on LJ a little on the pretence of playing around with Ubuntu a bit. So far, I'm impressed. It's clean, elegant, fast and works extremely well. I had to copy my X config over from my (dead) SuSE installation, as Debian's X config failed to handle my 2-screen Xinerama setup, but then, most distros do. Only SuSE and Xandros have coped. Looks good. Recommended.

[Meme] Poetry

It seems there is a meme of posting a poem in one's LJ. I approve. I haven't posted one for months, since a lovely little piece called "Separation". And some of my own wretched haiku. So...

major_clanger has beaten me to it with "High Flight", so instead, I choose another aerial gem:

The Windhover

To Christ our Lord

I caught this morning morning's minion, king-
  dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dáwn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rólling level úndernéath him steady áir, & stríding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl & gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, -- the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty & valour & act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, o my chevalier!
No wónder of it: shéer plód makes plóugh down síllion
Shine, & blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gáll themsélves, & gásh góld-vermílion.

  - Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

I have left in Hopkins' accents, used to indicated the stresses of his "sprung rhythm", part of his lovely signature style. Scansion schmansion, it all works, somehow.