The stupidity of "Soft Brexit"

One of the characteristics of the EU referendum was the "we can have our cake and eat it" promises from the Leave campaign. That we would be able to get all the benefits of being in the EU while avoiding the obligations and responsibilities that go with those benefits.

Post-referendum, the notion of Soft Brexit follows the same illogical path. Having your cake and being able to eat it has returned.

Essentially, what I'm referring to as a Soft Brexit is any deal that retains Britain's access to the European single market.

This appears to be Nick Clegg's stance, at any rate.

And we just had Jeremy Corbyn demand guarantees that we be kept in the single market before agreeing to support the government.

(Which is utter nonsense. You don't get guarantees, period. You can't require a British PM to guarantee something that only the EU negotiators have the power to do.)

It's pretty clear that the consequences of any Soft Brexit option would be that we would have to accept free movement of labour, and most likely accept that we would have to pay some sort of associate membership charge. The result of this is that we would have no real change compared to the current state, but would have no say in how the EU is run, no say in the condition it imposes us, or any mechanism (like our current veto) to prevent the EU from making decisions that run counter to our interests.

Far from being able to have our cake and eat it, Soft Brexit would result in us having less control of our own affairs thane we do as members of the EU. Pretty much any of the desired aims of those in the Leave camp would be better met by remaining in the EU than by taking the half-in and half-out approach of a Soft Brexit.

A few days in Prague

I'm sure that when you're getting married, you don't think too much about the long term consequences of the date you choose for the wedding. I know that when we chose a date back in 1986 it was largely around when people and places were available. We didn't think that late October would mean that our anniversary would always be (a) autumnal, verging on wintry, and (b) coincident with the school half-term, pushing prices up significantly.

But anyway, this year we went to Prague for a few days.

We flew Ryanair from Stansted. It's just down the road, so we drove down (at 4am) and used the meet and greet parking. Drive up, hand over your keys, walk into the terminal, and your car is waiting when you get back. That's the theory and, when it works, it's perfect. This time it worked eventually, but after we had spent 15 minutes queueing on the entry road, 5 minutes trying to talk to someone over the dratted machine at the entrance, and another 5 minutes waiting for them to raise the barrier.

We grabbed a quick breakfast before heading for the gate. The usual problem with these cheap flights is that due to having to pay for checked bags, everyone maxes out on cabin baggage. I'm pretty sure virtually all the bags people were trying to cram in the overhead lockers comfortably exceeded the size limit.

The flight was on time, in fact I think we were fractionally early arriving in Prague. Safely through the system and met by a driver (we had been warned not to try and get a taxi at the airport but to book in advance) who took us straight to our hotel.

We were staying in the Design Hotel Neruda. It's up in lesser town, nestled underneath the castle. Mid-range and comfortable, serving an excellent breakfast, it made an excellent base.

It wasn't 10am, so our room wasn't ready. Of course, we didn't expect it to be, we were just after dropping the suitcases, and then we were ready to explore. The street is famous for having many original house signs that were used before numbers, I took a few photos.

First stop was a walk up the street to the Museum of Miniatures. I had no idea what to expect (probably some neat models of some sort), but it's actually tiny models that you need a microscope to see. We just about managed to get round before a huge tour group descended on the place.

Another walk, and we got to the Public Transport Museum. [photo gallery] We found it fascinating, mostly trams but some other vehicles as well. We then took the sightseeing Route 91 tram into Prague itself.

The Old Town of Prague is fairly compact, so we started out on what would be the first of several days walking around. We headed up to Wenceslas Square - really a long open boulevard rather than a proper square, and then went into the Vytopna Restaurant.

No, my beer isn't delivered like that in Cambridge.

A bit more wandering around, including going round and round the houses to find this moving statue of Kafka's head, which was a bit odd. Then back to the hotel to check in and unpack. Because we were staying up in Lesser Town, we ended up crossing across the famous Charles Bridge quite a few times. It's a bigger piece of architecture than I was expecting, but it was usually packed with tourists.

Dinner was at U Medvidku, so back into the Old Town we went. We had to try traditional Czech cuisine. (Which as far as I can tell is very tasty but involves very large portions.) It's a very popular place, unfortunately we ended up in one of the side rooms rather than the main hall.

Next morning, more walking - first into the centre, then on the Sandemans free walking tour with our guide Tijo. We've done a number of these tours, they are free (apart from the tip), and tend to be done by outsiders who give a slightly different perspective on the place. There's usually a stop in a coffee shop halfway through.

Lunch was at the John Lennon Pub. We had tried to find this the day before, but our map showed it in the wrong place. I had the baked camembert, while Mel went for the goulash soup served in bread. Then we walked past the John Lennon wall.

Back to the hotel and we had booked a massage and spa, to treat those aching muscles.

In the evening we went off to a Black Light Theatre show. The one we went to is supposed to be the original and best, but they all say that and we haven't been to any others for comparison. Again, I didn't really know what to expect, but it's very impressive and excellently done. A little expensive, mind.

Then a late dinner just round the corner at U Provaznice, I just had Schnitzel and bread. And beer. There are relatively few bars open past 11, but we found U Vejvodu, where I had an excellent rich dark beer called Master. There was a little excitement just as we were about to leave, a group left without paying and the bar staff all shot off after them.

Next morning it was looking a little damp. It was fairly autumnal all the time, but we just had the one wet day, and it never really rained hard enough to get the umbrella out. We went up to the Castle and had a wander round. The Castle grounds are free, although it is a secure military area. Fortunately, the queue waiting to be searched was about 2 people when we got there first thing - it was much longer later in the day.

There's a very interesting Toy Museum in the castle, which we enjoyed going round. Those of us in the UK were brought up on the likes of Hornby, but that was a cheap copy of German toys. There was some Hornby present, but more Marklin and other local makes. The fact that it was warm and dry didn't make any difference, of course.

We wandered out to the Villa Richter, which is by the castle. I can imagine it being glorious to have a glass of bubbly outside in the gardens and vineyards. Nothing much on a cold, wet, windy day, so we went off to the Strahov Monastic Brewery instead. I'm sure it's good, but definitely tourist prices.

That was right next to the Miniatures Museum we had visited earlier, there's also the Monastery Library that you can visit. My advice is to give it a miss, there's not much to see at all and it's expensive for even that. (I'm a great fan of old books and libraries, it was a huge disappointment. But then I can go to the Fitz any time I like for free.)

We then took the regular tram, route 22, into the centre for some more wandering. This took us into the Czech Beer Museum. This is a proper museum, with an optional tasting at the end. (So Mel, who doesn't like beer, just had a museum ticket.) It's quite interesting, although a bit expensive. You have to laugh when they have a display of beers of the world and it has Double Diamond in it. The disappointing part was that they didn't have the full choice of beers available to try.

On the way to our next event we grabbed one of the local snacks, a trdelnik. With chocolate. We got ours from Good Food on Karlova, recommended.

So the next appointment was a Wine Spa. There are several beer spas, offering a hot spa with unlimited beer on tap. Mel found a place that would do a wine spa instead. You're not bathing in wine really, it's wine extracts and herbs they add to the water.

Our anniversary dinner was at the Seven Swabians, a medieval themed restaurant that was just a few yards from the hotel. And, ideally for Mel, they serve mead. Mysteriously they had managed to write our reservation down for the wrong date, but it didn't matter and we had an enjoyable evening anyway. I was already feeling rather stuffed (have I mentioned yet that portions are rather generous?) but the chicken and blue cheese was absolutely delicious.

Next morning we walked southwards, without crossing the river, passing the memorial to the victims of communism, to the Kingdom of Railways. It's the biggest train set I've ever seen, and it's not finished yet. Fascinating. And it would probably be even better if they had signs in English, and if we knew the country so recognised some of the places that were on the model.

Crossing the river we passed the dancing building. I suppose you can just about imagine it as a couple dancing. Maybe.

England hasn't been invaded since 1066, but mainland Europe is a different story. The Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror reminded us of that. A sombre experience.

We then had a tour of the microbrewery at Novomestsky pivovar. A brewpub, in our terms. We got a personal tour, just the two of us - whether we were the only people on the tour, or whether we were the only english people who turned up, I'm not sure. This was followed by a tasting of some beer samples (I had to drink most of Mel's, what a shame!) and a meat and cheese platter. The dark beer was delicious - stick in a CAMRA beer festival and call it porter, and we would rave about it.

Mel's a bit of a mead fanatic. We went to U Sedmi Svabu for dinner not only because it was interesting and was close to the hotel, but because it advertised mead. Turns out that mead (or medovin) is fairly common in Prague. We had noticed bottles on sale in plenty of shops, and while searching online to translate the labels to work out which flavour was which we stumbled across the Mead Museum. (I'm astonished that such a thorough organizer as Mel wasn't even aware of it, but I think it's only recently opened.) So we just had to go and visit. They have almost a hundred different meads, mostly local. (There was an english bottle hiding up on a shelf.) Mel had an excellent time tasting 10 different ones, plus the initial free sample, and we had to buy a couple of bottles to bring home.

One of the tourist highlights in Prague is the Astronomical Clock on the main square. Yes, it's an interesting old clock. On the hour crowds of tourists gather to watch it do it's thing. You might think it was going to be something impressive, but it's not. The hourly show is pretty pathetic.

We then went to the Municipal House, and had cake and coffee. It's a glorious piece of architecture, some sort of cross between baroque and art nouveau. Apparently it's in xXx with Vin Diesel. While the staff were efficient, they were a bit snooty.

I was a bit done in at this stage, after a chill out at the hotel we wandered a bit further up the hill. There are relatively few bars I've walked into and walked straight back out again, U cerneho vola was one - the reception was beyond unwelcoming. We did find a very nice cafe on the way back, whose name unfortunately escapes me. While I just had a small beer, Mel had the beer cheese - which is cheese you mash up with spices and beer and things into a paste and spread on your bread, and actually works quite well.

Next morning we started out along the same path as the day before, although this time grabbing a cake from the bakeshop on the way, heading for the funicular up to the Petrin gardens. There was a fair queue, not helped by the fact that the staff insisted on running to timetable and making you wait 10 minutes after the cars were full.

We wandered round the hill and paths, but it was a beautiful clear day so we climbed up to the top of the Petrin Tower where you get excellent views.

Walking into Prague we stopped off at the Pivovarsky Dum for a quick beer. Another microbrewery, they do food and also a sampler set of 8 to try. We just sat right next to the brass brewing vessels and chilled out.

We had looked at Blatnicka a couple of times in passing. We went in for a small glass of wine in the afternoon. In truth, I'm not sure if we went in the right place - the official wine bar is next door and the main restaurant seems to have moved across the road. But it was a very pleasant glass of wine.

Dinner on the last day was at Lokal. It's a vast barn of a place, most of the tables are reserved. But if there's a reservation from 7, and you're there at 6, they'll happily sit you down, letting you know what time you have to be finished by. I had the garlic soup and fried cheese, although I was tempted by the carp.

For a last drink we went back to U Provaznice,and had a last look at that Astronomical Clock as we made our way back to the hotel to get our taxi back to the airport.

On Rebooting the City Deal

The Greater Cambridge City Deal is a project that gets a significant amount of funding to improve Cambridge and its surroundings.

Having looked at some of the proposals they've come up with, I was pretty concerned that they didn't seem to be heading in the right direction. Or even close. There's a real possibility that the urge to be seen to be "doing something" will fritter away this investment, make things worse in the short term, and compromise the region's ability to improve in the longer term.

I'm clearly not alone. There have been demonstrations, petitions, and a whole range of activity on social media.

I went to the Rebooting the City Deal event run by Smarter Cambridge Transport, and it was packed. The organizers seemed surprised that so many people turned up; given the furore over the proposals it wasn't at all surprising.

One of the talks covered the proposal for Light Rail. Now, I'm intrinsically a fan of rail-based solutions, but I can't see this being a success. It's too expensive while simultaneously offering little benefit because it has fairly limited city coverage and doesn't really link up to the wider transport system. Not only that, we're talking 15 years out, so we're going to have to live with the mess and congestion that is Cambridge until then, at which point we don't know whether it will be solving the right problem. If you are going to go down the light rail route, you need to go full bore, creating a denser mesh with better coverage, and do it quickly.

However, it's important to have proposals like this being put forward. Working through their pros and cons gives you a much better understanding of the real issues.

Then we had Edward Leigh of Smarter Cambridge Transport talking about better bus journeys. Much of the material is based on this document. While I agree with the list of what the bus needs to do to be a favoured mode of transport, I think there's an item 0 that's missed - there must be a bus that gets you from your starting point to your destination, and back again. If there isn't a bus route, or it doesn't operate at the times you need to travel, then it doesn't matter how good you make services, people will have to find alternative modes of transport.

I'm reasonably fortunate in living a few minutes from one of the most densely trafficked bus routes in Cambridge, but even that is a frustrating business. Not only are the fares horrifically expensive, if the frequency is every 10 minutes, why do I end up with common 30 or 45 minute waits? And if I want to go straight into central Cambridge, then it's fine, but there are large areas of the city that have essentially no bus service at all. Want to go into some of the lovely villages near Cambridge? Not by bus, you won't. Many of the places I might think of going to work or shop really aren't accessible by bus at all.

The third talk was a little odd, in that a lot of numbers were presented without a clear explanation of their meaning. But as I understood it, it goes like this. We think Cambridge is a cycling hotspot. Compared to many places in the UK, it is, but if you compare it to The Netherlands then it's clear we're doing really badly. So the talk basically looked at what cycling in Cambridge would look like if cycling followed the same pattern as The Netherlands - in other words, if the same proportion of journeys of a given type and length (or difficulty) were made here as are there. What didn't really come out in the talk was that you would see a dramatic increase in cycling. The conclusion I would draw from this is that there's huge untapped potential.

We then had a short panel discussion. Our current and previous MPs were pretty scathing in their comments. One thing I took away from Daniel Zeichner's comments is that, regardless of what the City Deal itself might want to do, the fact that we have multiple independent councils involved, each with their own agendas, isn't helping matters - a unitary authority would greatly simplify matters. And then there's the fact that certain elements of any plan are dependent on private companies - ok, Stagecoach - that are a law unto themselves and aren't really involved in the process. (Looking elsewhere at places that have managed to make progress in improving local transport, it's clear that the more control the local authorities have over transport, the better they can make progress - simply because the left hand and the right hand are connected rather than fighting each other.)

Brexit madness

The UK held a divisive referendum back in June that resulted in a very narrow majority for "Leaving the EU". Whatever that means.

Let me construct an analogy for you.

You're travelling along a motorway in a car, and a faction say "we don't like this car". You hold a narrow vote, and the result is a narrow win for the get rid of the car faction.

I mean, everyone wants a better car, right?

So, what do you do next? The problem is that the terms of the vote were unclear.

You might think that the vote would result in:

• Stopping at the next service station and having the car cleaned and serviced.
• Going to a garage and trading the car in for this years model.
• Looking around for a different model of car.
• Giving up on driving a car and calling a taxi instead.
• Getting rid of the car and using an alternative souce of transport such as a bus, or train, or plane, or bicycle.

Even though the majority might have wanted a change from the current car, there's no consensus as to what the replacement mode of transport should be. In fact, it's possible (even likely) that most people in the car would retain it rather than choose some of the alternatives.

So, after Brexit, what would our government and so-called leaders have us do?

It appears that they're hell bent on us all flinging ourselves out of the car and hitting the motorway tarmac at 70mph.

Liverpool

Following on from the highly successful short breaks we had last year in Manchester and Leeds, we've just had a long weekend in Liverpool.

We stayed with a friend, and the reason for the timing was the Grand National at Aintree. However, while Mel went to the races, I wasn't overly fussed about the idea of standing in a cold muddy field in a huge crowd, being unable to see anything properly, while being lashed by rain and hail. So I spent more time looking round Liverpool instead.

We went to a fair number of pubs in the centre; I'll cover those separately.

We went on the train, down to London and up to Liverpool Lime Street. One thing I will say, is that Euston is a dismal station, and the concourse is dire. The second thing I'll say is that it's a bit cheeky to charge for WiFi access on a train these days.

Liverpool Lime Street, on the other hand, is a pleasant station - light and airy.

The first evening we had dinner at Fazenda. For those who haven't tried this (we had been to the restaurant in Leeds, and before that to a similar place in Madeira so knew what to expect), the servers keep bringing out chunks of meat and carve off a slice for you. It's all you can eat for steak. Go there hungry, and skimp on the salad bar. It's not cheap, as it's a set price, but it's good food and good value. I was astonished when Mel had a dessert as well.

Then we hit the Cavern Club. Liverpool isn't just about the Mersey Beat and The Beatles, but if you've got them make use of them. It's not the original Cavern Club - that got destroyed in development, but it's a re-creation a few doors down. We arrived early enough that there wasn't a queue, and it was quiet enough that we were able to sit down. The beer's nothing special, but the atmosphere is pretty good. There was a pretty dodgy warm up act on at the start, but later - and it was getting pretty loud and packed by this stage - we had a Beatles tribute act, and they were really rather good.

Travelling around Liverpool and environs is pretty easy with MerseyRail. We were staying out on the Wirral at Wallasey, a few minutes walk from the station on the Wirral Line. It's pretty cheap, and we can use our Two Together railcard as well. It's slightly confusing at first how the train does a clockwise loop through James Street, Moorfields, Lime Street, and Central, but that covers the whole of the city centre.

Next morning we went in on the train and had a little wander down the front before going into the Maritime Museum. Like the other city museums, entrance is free. We did the Seized! and Emigrants exhibitions in the basement, before heading upstairs. The Lusitania and Titanic exhibitions were decent, I think I found the Battle of the Atlantic exhibition the most interesting. The International Slavery Museum is part of the same building, we had to skip that as we had an appointment to keep.

Saturday was race day and I was largely left to my own devices.

To get a feel for the city I was booked on  the Free Walking Tour. We did most of the major locations, starting at St George's Hall, down William Brown Street, through the centre to Mathew St and the Beatles, the Nelson and Victoria statues, the Church of Our Lady and St. Nicholas, the Three Graces and the waterfront, ending at the Albert Dock. These aren't professional tour guides, so you get a different feel - although sometimes the delivery was along the lines of the Jungle Cruise Ride at Disney. We had an ideally timed stop for coffee along the way (ideally timed as a shower came over just as we arrived at the coffee shop).

In the afternoon I headed back up to the Walker Art Gallery. This is actually pretty good, there's nothing famous but there's a pretty strong range of most periods. I particularly liked some of the earlier material - the colours of some of the works are remarkably fresh and vivid given their age. Like the other museums. it's free, and has a fairly decent cafe.

Next door is the Central Library. While it's not of itself a tourist attraction - it really is a library - it's worth wandering in to have a look at the building. There's the newly re-modelled main building, which is clean and light, and the refurbished Picton Reading Room.

At the bottom of the street is the World Museum. Researching ahead of time, reviews were mixed, but it's pretty good in some ways. The building is a little awkward and could do with more or better lifts, I had to wait quite a while to get a lift up to the top and then walk down. The Space part was interesting - they had Tim Peake on a loop. Dinosaurs and Natural World were disappointing - coverage was too thin to be any good. The Ancient World is closed for refurbishment, but I found the World Cultures to be very interesting. I just had time for a quick flip through the aquarium as they were getting everybody out at closing time.

After a quick drink met up with the racegoers at the Monro Gastropub for an excellent meal. And Gastropub is a pretty good description - solid food, well presented.

Sunday we went round the Beatles Story. This comes in two parts. What I think of as the main part, on the Albert Dock, is a history of the Beatles and the Mersey Beat. Very interesting, if slightly disjointed and out of order. The second part, up at the Ferry Terminal, is just weird. It hasn't got all that much to do with the Beatles for one thing, the audio guides don't work, and the Fab 4D show is plain bizarre.

Around grabbing a few more pubs, we had a light dinner at Veeno. Shame the chain hasn't expanded south, it's ideal when you don't want or need a full meal, and just want a bit of wine, meat, and cheese to keep you going.

Monday we had a little drive round the Wirral, including stopping off at Nicholls for an ice cream, before lunch at the Telegraph Inn in New Brighton. Then just time for one last drink at The Crown Hotel by the station before taking the train home.

Growing old painfully

Heaven only knows what I'll be like when I'm genuinely old.

I've never been entirely the fittest and healthiest person. Whether it's a simple thing like Hay Fever (which must be some British pollen, as I wasn't bothered much when we lived in Toronto), or migraine attacks, which peaked in my late teens and are now just occasional interruptions,

As you get older, it seems that more problems crop up, and your ability to recover diminishes.

I suspect the current rot started back in 2002, when I had a bad fall and broke my arm. We were in France on holiday, and hired a tennis court on the first morning. Walking around picking up tennis balls, my knee gave way and dumped me on the concrete.

The arm is mostly healed, but it was on the elbow joint, so movement is slightly restricted and repetitive movements can become very painful pretty quickly. A bigger problem is the knees - the bones aren't straight, the kneecap is at a slight angle and occasionally slips to one side. This has happened every few years, for as long as I can remember, it's just that it had never caused any serious damage before this event (although I had at least one fall while carrying the kds when they were small). The fix is to tighten up the leg muscles to pull the kneecap on tighter; the bad part of that is that it's pretty sore and I don't really enjoy walking far.

A few years later I was starting to have a little trouble reading. And I couldn't really focus properly on fine things. The optician seemed to take great pleasure in explaining that this was purely age-related. "As you get past 40 these things happen." It took a year or so to get fully comfortable wearing glasses.

The real trouble hit one day in August 2013. I stood up after breakfast, and immediately fell over as the room span around me. This turned out to be BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo), and it's really quite disruptive. The spontaneous attacks went on for about a month, there was quite a bit longer when I could trigger it by moving in a certain way. With the minor symptoms it looks like I'm drunk as I walk, weaving along because your balance is telling you the world is swaying, and your body automatically tries to compensate. I've avoided cycling since, although driving is fine because everything there is a conscious movement.

Then at the start of 2014 I was actually very ill. The primary symptom was bleeding gums. Normally that means gum disease, often coupled with something else (if the body has spare capacity then it can deal with gum disease, but if you're otherwise ill - or pregnant, apparently  - then your body decides it has more important things to deal with). But a couple of dental referrals came back pretty clear - this wasn't a dental problem.

At about the same time, I was having episodes of extreme short-term tiredness. And I mean extreme. As in being unable to stand, even. This would normally kick in early afternoon. I would be fine going for my morning swim, but then I would get lethargic and worse.

My first thought was that it was coeliac disease. It runs in the family, it explained the symptoms (vitamin deficiency by malabsorption). Changing diet appropriately helped quite a bit at first.

I had a whole load of tests. The results from the blood tests were absolutely definitive. Not coeliac. And, in fact, pretty much everything came back negative. So I knew that I wasn't affected by a whole range of problems and conditions. Good news, in one way, but didn't really get to the root of the problem. Going back to my normal diet didn't make things any worse.

If you look closely enough, you're going to find something wrong. There was a minor anomaly on one of the clotting tests that they dug into. More blood tests and genetic tests followed, and eventually they confirmed Von Willebrand Disease.

The odd thing about VWD is that it's supposed to be inherited, so I've had this for over 50 years without noticing any issues (normally it gets picked up in childhood, where you're far more likely to get scrapes and bruises). And the bleeding gums were the only symptom - there's a 20-questions test, and I was well below the threshold for even thinking about a diagnosis on that basis.

This all took about 6 months, and we never found any explanation for the tiredness. VWD wasn't the cause, it just got picked up by accident during the investigation. Things generally seemed to improve over time, although my energy levels still aren't always where I would like them to be. I do take vitamin supplements now, though, and I'm sure that's helped.

I'm just hoping that nothing else on this creaking body is going to fall apart, for a while at least.

Science Museum, Leonardo, Ada, Churchill

On Monday afternoon I went round the Science Museum in London.

I've been there before, but a long time ago. At least, I presume I must have visited one some school trip or other, back in the day. Although I can't remember any previous visits.

The nudge that caused me to visit this time was the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition. Hailed as the must-see exhibition of 2016, it sounded interesting and really cool. And there's the whole of the rest of the museum, too.

Now, it's OK. What there is to see is pretty good. But overall, to be honest, it was a little disappointing. And the primary feeling I came away with was "is that it?". For something that's heavily promoted, it seemed a little small. Yes, there are a few models and exhibits, but my overall feeling is that it only skimmed the surface - I was expecting a rather more substantial exhibition.

The tickets aren't especially cheap either. Viewed in isolation, I would struggle to justify the ticket price. But, in the wider context, entrance to the Science Museum itself is free. And the afternoon as a whole was certainly worth the entrance fee.

I also looked round the Ada Lovelace exhibition. This one's free, so can't complain about the value. But again, it seemed a little small and superficial. It's just one small room, it doesn't really fully cover the subject.

I thoroughly enjoyed Making the Modern World, on the ground floor. But then I've always been a sucker for engines and models. And there's always the "I remember having one of those" moments.

It wasn't necessarily part of the plan, but the cafe where I had a coffee was right next to it, so I went round Churchill's Scientists. And I found this fascinating. There is, of course, a strong connection with Oxford, Cambridge, Radio Astronomy, and DNA, which are all in my personal background. Overall, this was the best part of the day.

Swim 22

We recently noticed that Diabetes UK are running a fundraising event called Swim 22.

The idea is for participants to swim 22 miles - the width of the English Channel - over a three month period, starting today, and be sponsored for it.

Now, I'm not asking for sponsorship for myself. I swim half a mile most mornings, usually 6 days a week. So I'm going to be doing somewhere in the region of 35-40 miles over that period, and it seems somewhat cheeky to ask for sponsorship for something I'm going to be doing anyway.

But Melanie is participating - she does the same half a mile I do, but normally only gets to to the pool about 3 days a week. So it's going to be a bit of a challenge for her to achieve the distance - but a nice little bit of motivation to get to the pool and improve fitness.

So if you would have thought about sponsoring me, you can sponsor Melanie instead. And track her progress online.

Not quite a Valentine's Day out

There are a whole list of "XXX's day" that crop up throughout the year. Many now taken over by cringeworthy commercialism.

We've just had that Valentine's one. We could have gone out for dinner, but it's just an excuse to cram people into overcrowded restaurants and jack up the prices. We had a nice dinner at home instead.

But we did use it as an excuse to go out on Friday afternoon and evening. There are a number of bars, pubs, and restaurants in Cambridge that have either been refurbished or changed hands, or that we haven't managed to visit for a while, so we wanted to check them out.

First up was The Emperor, now rebranded as a Latin Tapas Bar. It opens at noon and of course the bus was on time for once, so we killed time looking in some of the local shops, then had a drink (in my case, a very pleasant Oakham Inferno) while sitting in the window and watching the world go by. I had never been in the pub in its original guise, so I'm not able to make comparisons. The menu looked interesting, although it's not exactly my style.

We then walked further into town, stopping at Novi. This used to be The Fountain before refurbishment, and I used to go there regularly when we had meetups in the function rooms upstairs. Now it's more of a coffee shop, cocktail bar, and artisanal eatery. Another half (Camden Pale Ale) for me, Mel went for a cocktail. I was getting a bit peckish, and plumped for a superb caramel and pear brownie. The kitchen is rotated between local independents - must go back when Steak and Honour are in residence!

Grabbing the brownie, which might have been seen as a risk of spoiling one's appetite, soon proved its worth, as we had decided to switch banks for one of our accounts. This took rather longer than we anticipated, followed by a quick diversion to get some dried fruit from the market.

The plan was then to go to La Raza, but we had missed Lunch and Happy Hour hadn't yet started, so we did a little more shopping and ran a couple of errands.

Happy Hour (why do people keep calling it that, it's half the evening) at La Raza was a great success. It was pretty quiet, so we were able to sit in peace and try a couple of cocktails. The kitchen was closed, but the friendly and helpful bar staff had no problem in getting together a plate of bread and dipping oils for us. Regular pricing would be a bit steep, but Happy Hour makes it good value.

We then moved on to the Pint Shop. It's popular, it has a reasonable reputation, it's horrifically expensive, and we couldn't get a seat. A decent half of craft stout, but in London I would get a pint and change. We've grabbed it, but don't see anything compelling us to go back.

Walking down the street we had a look through the windows at the Bath House, an old favourite (it's affordable and reliable). I'm sure it's been done up recently, but it didn't seem to have changed, and was pretty packed. Next to it is Bread and Meat, again it was full and after the loaf of bread we had eaten at La Raza we weren't quite ready for more food - one for another day.

Back in the day, there was The Vaults. It's gone now, replaced by 2648. (Their website was working, looks to be broken at the moment.) We were pretty much the only people in there, the "secret" room was open with workmen, and they haven't yet got around to food. Along with a Blue Moon, we had a fun game of table football. It'll be interesting to see how this place develops, as it's only been open a short while and, while showing promise, isn't quite finished yet.

Another place that's changed its identity more than a few times was our final stop, the Grain & Hop Store. OK, so it's a Greene King pub, but very much with a craft beer slant, and their own menu. Downstairs was packed, but we managed to get a table upstairs. I had a Porter (I'm very much into beers that are black), and we shared a delicious freshly cooked home made scotch egg.

Brussels and Back

I recently went to FOSDEM in Brussels. This isn't about FOSDEM (which was great); it's some of the things that I noticed there, and while travelling.

I ended up flying from Gatwick. It would be nice if, living in Cambridge, flying from Stansted was an option, but it isn't. I looked at going by train, but the cost difference was significant, so that was ruled out.

It was public transport all the way. While our experience of parking at Gatwick has got much better over the last year, I really couldn't see the point of driving down, especially as I was driving down on my own.

First step was a bus to Cambridge railway station. Fortunately, the bus turned up at our stop reasonably promptly. Often, the bus disservice run by Stagecoach is such that "a bus every ten minutes" translates into average waiting times of 20 minutes. Half way to the station, we come to the stop by Budgens to find it swamped by small children. This was the first time I had seen a school outing using a regular service bus.

I've recently got a network railcard. When I just used to go down to London in the evening, this would have been marginal in terms of savings. More daytime trips (commuting, although normally outside the rush hour) makes it much more attractive. With this journey as well, it almost paid for itself in the first two trips.

I took the underground to Victoria, to get the Gatwick Express. Coming up to the concourse, I thought I had just missed the train (although it's not a long wait to the next one). Then I hear over the station tannoy "Would the driver of the 11:44 Gatwick Express please report to platform 13 where his train is ready to depart". That's a new one! So I made that train with a minute or two to spare.

I'm used to going through tourist areas and being accosted by restaurants touting for trade. Some of the Brussels restaurants were plain stupid. They would almost rugby tackle us, or stand in front arms spread wide physically blocking our path. Seriously, is such abusive behaviour likely to encourage custom?

After the conference, I had a few hours in Brussels itself, as my flight home was reasonably late on Monday. It's a sorry place which has the Mannekin Pis as a major tourist attraction. The city museum was also closed on Monday, which was a little annoying.

I was, however, mightily impressed by the Stripmuseum. That's comic strips, by the way. It's not just Tintin, either. It's in an old classic building, and while most of the material isn't in English, the exhibition itself is trilingual.

Avoiding the aforementioned overtly tourist restaurants, I fancied a steak for lunch. There was a sign outside the Brussels Grill that has a big sign outside offering a steak special lunch for 11.5 euros. I was shown to a table and then promptly ignored. The place was fairly busy, with lots of people coming in, just not a lot of service happening. I was just about to walk out when the waiter came over. On trying to order, he then tells me they've run out of the special offer (limited quantity for the offer each day). I have my coat on and am almost at the door when he goes for the Hail Mary pass. Just down the street, only a few doors down, is another branch of the same chain, the Raphael, which is much quieter and won't have run out. And he takes the time to make sure I can see exactly where it is (it's not got any of the outdoor seating, so it's much less obvious).

It's only a few yards down the street, so what have I got to lose? And yes, it's far less crowded, in a far more interesting building, they do have the offer on, and service is prompt and attentive. I ended up having an excellent lunch.

Then to take the train back to the airport. The ticket machines at the station don't take notes, just coins. (Really, how hard is this?) I don't quite have enough coinage to cover the ticket, so have to queue at the counter. And they have just the one counter open, who is having to do everything from simple tickets like mine to someone in front who has some really complicated task that takes forever.

Cheap airlines charge for checked luggage (and it would have doubled the cost for me, but I was travelling light so just had a rucksack with a change of clothing, and that went easily under the seat). It seems that almost everyone is basically gaming the system by pushing the envelope on carry-on luggage sizes. There's clearly more luggage than will fit, so the last few people get their cases shoved in the hold.

One side-effect of this is that almost everyone stands in a queue for 20-30 minutes in order to get one early enough for there to be spaces in the overhead lockers. This despite the call from the desk for everyone to stay seated. I really don't understand why people do this. I finished two puzzles in the paper while having a relaxing sit down.

It's only a short hop, then more queueing at Gatwick. There's this push to make people use the e-Passport gates rather than see a real person. That would be fine if (a) the machines actually worked reliably (b) they worked reasonably quickly, and (c) there were enough machines to cope. Instead, there are a tiny handful of machines, either they're not working or people can't operate them, and it's very much slower than seeing a real person. I've nothing against the electronic version in principle, but if that's the way they want to go it's essential to equip the system with enough capacity.

Getting back home, I hopped onto the Thameslink train to St Pancras rather than wait for the Gatwick express. It was just pulling into the platform, so I decided to take that as it was there. It was fine until we got into central London, at which point the commuters going home up to Bedford pile on, and it's sardine territory. Fighting my way off the train at St Pancras was quite a challenge.

I'm thinking the trip is going pretty well as I jump straight onto a train at King's Cross, only for us to then to shortly come to a grinding halt due to signal failure around Welwyn North. Nothing about this on the boards at King's Cross, but it was almost an hour's delay.

Christmas Markets

Yesterday we went to the Bury Christmas Market. We've been there several times now, and I've never really enjoyed it.

It's got a fair number of interesting stalls. There's a wide range of interesting produce and gifts. There's also the usual amount of utter tat, but presumably it sells to someone.

The real problem I have is that these places are just too darned busy. There's often a one-way system in force (Bury had one in the Athenauem and the Apex) so you can't wander at will. You're jostled, pushed, and shoved. You can't get to actually see the stalls properly, or stop if there's one that piques your interest. It's all too tense and frantic, rather than the pleasant browse that you're looking for.

So I bailed out and spent a very pleasant couple of hours in the Mason's Arms instead. I got there just after opening time, and it was already busy, but the turnover of people popping in for a quick drink or snack was quite reasonable, so I was sat down only a couple of minutes of getting a drink. At a large table on my own, so I decamped to a nice small table in the corner once that came free and let a much larger party take over - who then had to pass my lunch over to me. An uncomplicated menu, decent food, good beer, with friendly and helpful staff - what more do you want?

We've been to other Christmas Markets over the years. We went to Lincoln a couple of years ago, and it was a total disaster. The whole town is a one-way system, it was so crowded you could hardly move, and if you lifted your feet off the ground you would have been carried along at the snail's pace of the general flow.

We went to Lille a few years ago on the Eurostar, and that wasn't too bad (although I was probably a bit cranky due to the early start). There's a picture of the Big Wheel there in one of my desktop wallpaper collections.

While visiting family we've also taken in Birmingham and Nottingham. Again, these would have been quite pleasant if they weren't quite so congested.

Back to Cambridge. Today we went into town and wandered round the North Pole. We spent a couple of minutes, and we only stayed that long to confirm that there wasn't anything hiding in odd corners.

The first year or two they had a winter market on Parker's Piece it was pretty good - never huge, but an interesting selection of stalls. Recently, it's been dire - and from the evidence we saw today, that's not improved. I really can't recommend it, it managed to come in well under even my lowest expectations.

Today we also went over to the local Christmas Market at the NCI Social Club on Holland Street. This was far more interesting - just the sort of thing you expect from a local community event, eclectic and friendly.

Cambridge Food Scene

We've been to Manchester and Leeds this past year, and been very impressed by the food/pub/bar/cocktail scene in both places. But what's going in in our home city of Cambridge?

In May there's the main event of Eat Cambridge. We've missed out a bit the last couple of years, as it's been too close to the Cambridge Beer Festival. It looks like the calendar for 2016 is more favourable, so we're already licking our lips.

There's also a thriving Street Food scene. There are a whole host of independent traders who participate, and also some organised events such as foodPark and the Mill Road Feast.

There's a wide range of cuisine to satisfy any taste. I'm very boring, give me a Steak and Honour burger every time. I notice that they've branched out a bit and now have a residency at Novi.

Other burgers exist, of course, The other night I popped into Butch Annie's, and had an excellent burger washed down with a bottle of porter. It's downstairs where Cafe Carrington used to be, and I suspect it doesn't get the trade it deserves because of the location (all you can see is the stairs descending into the depths).

Fancy a tea or coffee and a cake? We have great places like Stickybeaks and Afternoon Tease, or the refurbished Fitzbillies. Walk along Green Street and you can have a proper afternoon tea at Harrietts or Bill's (which is a larger chain that also does much more). Last time I was along there I noticed that Catesby's have an upstairs cafe as well.

The area around the Guildhall and the Corn Exchange has seen some changes. Lot's of big chains have a presence, of course. I still mean to visit the Pint Shop, but it's been full every time I've gone past. What used to be The Cow is now Reys, which I've not tried (it was very empty, and moderately expensive). There's usually a queue at Aromi, I need to get in earlier to try out Bread and Meat, and Smokeworks is hidden away just down Free School Lane.

Mind you, if you're wandering around the centre of Cambridge at the moment the most visible sign if that itsu and Wasabi are following hard on the heels of Yo! Sushi. I understand one being interesting, but a surge to three seems odd.

Mind you, Cambridge is still a little light on decent wine and cocktail bars serving light meals. Oh well, can't have everything.

The curse of the car

Like it or not, the private car is an essential part of life for many. I've owned a few myself.

The downside is that it's expensive, it causes pollution, our roads and cities are congested, our housing is dominated by the need to store a vehicle (or more than one).

Realistically, though, there isn't much of an alternative.

If it were a reasonable option, I would cycle for many shorter journeys, and I suspect many people would do the same. Unfortunately, our current transport infrastructure is incredibly hostile to cyclists. Even in Cambridge, cycling provision is appalling.  There are a few token on-road cycle lanes that you are forced to share with metal monsters, many off-road paths are unmaintained, shared with pedestrians, narrow, and unlit. Many regular roads are simply too narrow for cyclists and motor vehicles to share safely, and junctions often seem to be designed to maximize the inconvenience and danger to cyclists.

And that's just the start. Woefully inadequate cycle parking and storage provision means that there's unlikely to be anywhere to put your bike when you're not on it, leading to a high likelihood of damage if it doesn't get stolen. Don't even get me started on the all too often farcical nature of cycle infrastructure. Overall, the people planning our infrastructure seem to be either plain ignorant or blatantly anti-cycling, even while paying it plenty of lip service.

So, cycling isn't going to be allowed to have much of an impact. What about public transport.

Now, I have visited places where there's a decent bus service. Cambridge is not one of those places. There's a very limited range of services, so many places aren't on a bus route at all. And you need both ends of the journey to be accessible, so that's even more difficult. Even when there is a possible route, it can take so long as to be simply implausible.

It turns out that where I live is pretty well served by bus routes. We're on 2 separate routes that go into the City Centre, so we even have a choice. It's fine in theory, and there are some days when it works out.

But much of the time, it's a complete disaster. The timetable gives a bus on each route at 10-minute intervals. So, 30 minute waits are not uncommon, over an hour isn't unheard of. The failure to actually provide buses to any meaningful timetable is a joke. Even when a bus does arrive, traffic can mean it takes much longer than the timetable says to make a journey - I've missed several trains, even allowing an hour for what's supposed to be a 20 minute journey to the railway station.

One possible response by the council is to introduce bus lanes, which turn out to do more harm than good. A prerequisite for a separate bus lane is that you have to have a spare lane so that the other traffic still has somewhere to go. So the bus lanes are added on wide, open roads where they don't give much benefit, and can't be added on the congested narrow roads that are actually causing the problem. Worse, on some of the roads (the Newmarket Road is an example here) the bus lane has to be skipped at narrow pinch points; the regular traffic queues are lengthened by the empty bus lanes (which reduce the overall capacity of the road) to the point that they block the pinch points and delay the buses.

So if not the bus, what about the train? We do use the train, on occasion - going into London, for example, or to Beer Festivals where driving isn't an option, or city breaks to avoid the effort of driving and the cost and trouble of parking.

The first snag here is that you have to get to the station. In Cambridge, like many smaller towns, it's been stuck out in the middle of nowhere (one advantage to visiting somewhere like Leeds or Manchester is that the station is conveniently located), so isn't convenient for visitors. Or locals, where you need to use the bus to get to the station - see above for why this is a problem. In fact, it's the difficulty of getting to the station in the first place that has made be reject the idea of commuting into London - the train trip itself would be fine.

Overall, the mesh of railway lines simply isn't dense enough outside some of our major cities. Part of this was Beeching - who essentially destroyed the rail network. (And on false grounds - by considering viability based on what was being achieved with Victorian equipment and working practices, not what could be achieved if run properly.) Decisions such as the misguided busway (that would have been more valuable as a rail line, which would have enlarged the rail mesh and integrated with the larger rail system) mean that the problems with the rail system in the large will persist.

Basically, then, we're cursed with the car not because it's any good but because the alternatives are so crippled by the powers that be that they're made even worse.

Long weekend in Leeds

It was our anniversary recently, so we decided to have a few days away. Having been to Manchester earlier in the year, this time we plumped for Leeds. I had been there at a conference a few years ago, and quite liked the look of the place, and noted that it - like Manchester - had a fairly compact centre that is easy to walk around.

We went up on the train, oddly via Stevenage. After dropping our bags off at the Quebecs Hotel, which was nice and central and close to the station, we set off for a little explore.

It wasn't long before we were sipping our first cocktail at Epernay. It's in the Electric Press building, so you can sit outside the bar, but inside, if you know what I mean.

We then wandered across to the Merrion Centre. Apart from the general look around, we were searching for LAB. Despite there being adverts on the hoardings, we wandered round the whole shopping centre twice and completely failed to find it. Upon checking later, we found it had closed down and had turned into Homage 2 Fromage. Why nobody bothered to put notices up is beyond me.

Continuing our stroll, we had a wonderful afternoon tea at Just Grand, one of those classic old places where none of the crockery matches.

After checking in at the hotel and freshening up, we hit the town. We had done some research, and the list of interesting pubs, restaurants, and cocktail bars was far longer than we were likely to be able to fit in. But we managed distrikt, where the staff were incredibly helpful, and I had a tasty plate of whitebait (after the afternoon tea, we really didn't want a full blown meal). And also visited Mook, which is highly recommended - a little hidden away, reasonably priced, and very friendly.

Saturday morning started a little damp. The hotel doesn't have a restaurant or even breakfast room, which is great because we intended having breakfast out anyway. So we went to Le Chalet, where I stuffed myself with the croque monsieur.

First tourist stop was the Leeds Art Gallery, which I found hugely disappointing. OK, so I'm not a pure art afficionado, but the permanent paintings were pretty poor quality, and the travelling exhibition was, well, odd and uninteresting. Fortunately, admission is free.

Then to the Leeds City Museum, also free, and also nicely located right in the centre. This was far more interesting, with a little bit of local history, the traditional stuff like an Egyptian mummy, and the 'Tailored' fashion exhibition was very good.

We headed off through the shopping center next, through the arcades and the Victoria Quarter, to the Kirkgate Market and the Corn Exchange, full of small independent vendors.

In the evening, a quick cocktail at Las Iguanas before dinner at Hotel Chocolat. Yes, dinner at Hotel Chocolat. Mussels in cacao beer, burger with chocolate flavoured accompaniments. Not something you find manay places, although the Cambridge Hotel Chocolat is just moving to new premises with a Cafe, so they're clearly pushing into markets beyond just selling boxes of posh chocolates. To finish, we went to The Alchemist - heaving, noisy, crowded, but with a good vibe, and just watching the cocktails being mixed is entertainment in itself.

Breakfast on Sunday was a sausage butty at Riveresque. We then wandered up to the bus station and took the bus out to Kirkstall Abbey. It's very impressive, but I would recommend a warmer day when you could wander along the river or sit in the park and do some sunbathing.

In the afternoon I put together a little pub crawl. Tapped, Friends of Ham, The Brewery Tap, and The Head of Steam, all very close to the hotel, and all excellent establishments well worth a visit.

Smartened up for the evening, stopped off for a coffee at Bilbao before the main meal of Fazenda. For those unfamiliar with the idea, they bring skewer after skewer of steak to your table, and cut you a piece. You have a little card which is red or green to let them know whether you want more, or whether you want a break to let some go down. Stuffed, we took in the Sky Lounge at the Hilton before heading back to the hotel.

Monday breakfast was at a wonderful little place called Burgundy. They have an all you can eat buffet, the quality was superb. Then a long walk over to the Royal Armouries, where we spent a few hours browsing armour.

Walking back into Leeds we had got a couple more cocktail bars lined up to try, but they were closed on Mondays. So when we went past Ambiente and saw the sign up about sherry tasting, we had to go in - someone round here is rather partial to a tasting flight of Pedro Ximenez.

After a bit of wandering round the shops, we ended up at Decanter to have a taster platter - they have a good range of meats and cheeses on platters, we were just looking for a little top-up before heading for the train.

Arriving at the railway station, we were greeted by a large "cancelled" sign on our train. Drinking time wasted! On the next train, which should have got us back into Cambridge only shortly after the original, due to changing at Peterborough instead of Stevenage. It didn't, of course, delays due to cattle on the line delayed that train as well.

Would I recommend Leeds? Yes, absolutely. If you're into food and drink and shopping, the centre will be fine all year round. If that's not your scene, then there are plenty of houses and museums in the area but, like Kirkstall Abbey, those would probably be better when the weather is a bit warmer.

The cars I've owned

Now that Amanda's starting to learn to drive, we looked at things like insuring her for one of our cars. It turns out we can't do that, because our insurance policies don't allow learners, so we would have to change insurer. How we get round this remains to be seen, but it's going to be expensive.

We would then have to decide which car to insure her for. Which made me think back to the cars I learnt in, and all the cars I've owned since.

My instructors car was an old Ford Escort Mark II, but the family car was a Triumph Toledo. These were all fairly simple cars, basic, but relatively easy to drive.

The first car I owned was a Renault 5, a blue one as I recall. It had a fault with the driver's window - if you opened it you couldn't close it again without taking the door apart. This car met an untimely demise in Godalming, when a local boy racer lost control on a bend and skidded across the road straight into us.

We had to replace that one. There wasn't a great deal of choice available to us as poor students. There was this metallic green Morris Marina with a leather covered roof that I quite liked, but we ended up with a maroon Talbot Solara. This was dull but worthy, although we did need to replace the gearbox when it got completely jammed in reverse (I suspect someone who had been learning to drive in it).

We left that one behind in the UK when we moved to Toronto. Although on its penultimate trip the front driver's side wheel blew out on the motorway at 70, which was fun. And it had only just been into the garage to have the tire checked (they claimed nothing was wrong, so hadn't done that good a job). Unfortunately they had put the wheel back on with air hammers, and I couldn't shift it (although I managed to bend the tire brace, which was quite impressive).

On our return to the UK, we ended up with a Rover 213 saloon. It was nice, not too expensive, and I liked the drive. It's the only thing (other than the mortgage) we've ever taken out a loan for. When it came to replace it we went for the 214 hatchback, but actually went for a slightly older Honda-derived one, they drifted away from Honda and the replacements (I think the later ones had Citroen gearboxes) were never as good. Later, the Rover range got shuffled and we couldn't find one that really suited us.

So the next one was pretty much run of the mill. With the Rover 214 and its replacement, we were having to compromise - making a single car do for everything, so it had to be big enough for children and holidays, while small enough for Melanie to be happy driving around town. So it ended up as a Ford Escort. I think it was a Mark VI, but it had a new engine model that had an entertaining fault. As it warmed up, differential expansion caused air leaks in the head gasket, so about 2 minutes after start it had a propensity to stall. This didn't affect me too much - 2 minutes into my commute it was running hard on a main road, but Melanie's trip home had a stop 2 minutes into the journey and it would cut out every time.

As time went one, managing with one car was starting to become inconvenient, so Melanie got a Nissan Micra. In fact, all she's ever had are Nissan Micras. This meant we could cut the compromises, and have a small car around town and a larger car for the meatier journeys.

Along came the Toyota Avensis. This was a nearly new ex-hire vehicle, but had things like a satnav and air conditioning. It was the facelifted first edition, and for most things I really liked it.

The Avensis was involved in a lot of pain, though. Back in 2002 we went on holiday to France and I broke my arm. Cue Melanie having to drive the Avensis (which she hated driving) in France, following an ambulance that had carted me off to hospital. Then having to drive it home, including navigating the channel crossing. Later, in 2005, I got rear-ended at speed on the A1 - I slowed for queueing traffic, the car behind didn't. That was a big hit, but because it was dead straight, they just had to pull the rear bumper back. The satnav never worked again, though.

In 2006 we were again in France when the gearbox blew on the autoroute. It turns out we were about as close to the broken arm incident as you can get without leaving the autoroute (I've been reluctant to go back to France since). We managed (after a lot of back and forward) to borrow another car to continue the holiday. Then the car was recovered back to the channel tunnel, but the recovery vehicles aren't allowed though, so we had to drive the car (which sounded like it was dragging half the tin cans in europe behind us) onto the train and off again. There was no way I was going to stop, even when I was supposed to to let a first-class passenger in ahead of us. On arrival in England it seized completely at the top of the exit ramp, about 200 yards short of the waiting tow truck.

We replaced the gearbox (relatively cheaply) and it ran for a couple more years. It was a good car, but was carrying a lot of emotional baggage, so again we looked for a replacement.

The current car is a Ford Focus. We didn't need quite as much space as the kids grew older (although getting them and all their junk to and from University isn't quite so easy). It handles well, is easy to drive, and is basically trustworthy. Performance isn't great, fuel economy is awful, and the sound system isn't fantastic. We've had this one a while, and while I don't have any great attachment to it, we don't need anything in the way of a replacement, mileage is low, and the market at the moment really doesn't have any inspirational alternatives.

I've occasionally wondered if we actually need 2 cars at this point. I think that if we just had the one, we couldn't justify getting a second - we could hire one temporarily if needed, or use public transport. But as we've essentially paid down all the depreciation on the Focus, we may as well hold on to it.

Manchester May Trip

We went to Manchester, and it was being rebuilt.

Seriously, though, Manchester is going places, and is undergoing extensive redevelopment in order to get there.

Why Manchester? I went there a few years ago for business, and was very impressed with the city. Plenty of things to see and do, plenty of places to eat and relax. So when we were looking for places to go visit on the May Day Bank Holiday weekend, it was high on the list.

We went up by train. I didn't particularly want to tire myself out driving, we would have had to pay for parking, and we weren't planning on using the car to get around. We have this Two Together Railcard, which helps keep the cost down, and going up the West Coast main line is pretty quick.

Leaving Manchester Piccadilly, the first thing we see is that there's a free bus service. This is a very progressive city, so it gets extra points for that. The slightly worrying thing was that all that development and associated road works means that the route was nothing like the one printed on the map, but we got a free bus tour of the city thrown in.

We stayed at the Hotel Gotham. It's fairly new, it's only been open a few months, so everything still feels pretty new. It's pretty up-market, stylish, boutique, think American Prohibition (or the Disney Tower of Terror also came to mind). While the address is on King Street, the front of the building is actually a Jamie's Italian, the hotel entrance is just a side door that gets you to the elevator which will whisk you up to reception on the 6th floor.

First afternoon we walked over to the Museum of Science and Industry. After a quick cake in the cafe, we had a gentle browse round all 5 halls. Free entry, a sunny sunday, and the place was pretty busy, without being overcrowded. I especially liked the computer history and the planes in the aviation hall.

Back to the hotel, and we went up to Club Brass which has a small open rooftop area. Given Manchester's reputation for weather, having a look around while it was a beautiful sunny afternoon seemed like a good opportunity.

Dinner was booked at Veeno. I stumbled across the company while in York, just had some meat and wine there and got talking to the staff. So for Manchester we went for the tasting menu, which was excellent.

On the way back we stopped off for a cocktail (or two...) at The Alchemist. In this case, the New York Street location, which was nice and close to the hotel. Highlight here was the Passion Fruit Meringue Martini. Then back for a nightcap on the roof at Club Brass - fortunately the hotel supplies blankets for those who want to sit outside.

Monday morning and we joined a walking tour. The Discover Manchester tour runs every day, and gives you a good grounding on what's in the city. From the imposing Central Library, to the Manchester Central Convention Centre and the Bridgewater Hall, up to the Town Hall and Albert Square, into the John Rylands Library, past the Exchange building, through the modern shopping area, finishing by the National Football Museum. As we were up by the Football Museum, we went in (free entry again - spot the trend here?) to have a look around. If you're a football fan, definitely worth a visit.

It was past lunchtime, and we were feeling a bit peckish. We went along to the Richmond Tea Rooms - very quirky, definitely Alice in Wonderland. Unfortunately we were looking at an hour wait, so nipped down the street for a delicious cake at The Molly House.

In the evening we had tickets for Return to the Forbidden Planet at the Palace Theatre. So time to get ready and take in the pre-theatre menu at the hotel before walking down to the show.  The performance was excellent, although the audience wasn't that large (maybe half full). Popped into Gorilla after the show, then round to Cloud 23 for a nightcap. Walking back to the hotel, we got the more expected weather - just a bit of light rain.

On the final morning there was quite heavy rain, and very blustery at times. Fortunately the hotel has umbrellas to borrow for just such an occasion. We wanted to go back to some of the places we had passed on the walking tour, starting with the spectacular John Rylands Library. The tour had taken us in, so we had had a brief look around but, as a lover of old books, I wanted to go back to look at the exhibits.

Then out the back to the People's History Museum - very topical with the general election only a couple of days away.

A quick lunch at Dutton's on Albert Square, and we had a quick look inside Manchester Town Hall and the Royal Exchange Theatre before having to head back to get the train home.

We feel we've hardly scratched the surface of Manchester. The place is chock full of interesting bars and restaurants, so we'll be back for another visit.

Movie night in

Been watching some movies recently.

So, I was finding I had some free time, and watched Toy Story. And the craziest thing was that I've watched this before (at least, I'm pretty sure I've watched the movie at least once), and while the odd scene was familiar the whole movie seemed rather new to me. My mind has obviously forgotten a lot.

I then watched Toy Story 2. And that was even worse. Again, there's the odd scene I remember, but pretty much the whole movie was like something I had never seen before. This is sort of crazy.

As an aside, one thing I did notice was that there's a clear technological shift going on. The original Toy Story seems graphically flat compared to the second film.

Melanie often gets a few pages into a book or movie before she gets this feeling of deja vu creeping up on her. The other night, she couldn't remember whether she had watched World War Z (by the way, I know I haven't), so I found the trailer. It was a long series of yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, finally concluding that in reality, yes she had watched this one before.

Back to the films. There was an absolute classic - The Italian Job. Not that modern remake (which, to be fair, has Minis in it, but that's about all), but the Michael Caine original. It's still pretty good. Again, I had forgotten some of the plot, but it's very much of its time, and there's this British sense of humour that shines through.

White House Down was one of those classic action movies. You know, the sort where hundreds of fully armed professional soldiers are wiped out by single shots from pathetic handguns wielded by the bad guys, whereas our rebellious hero is a total amateur waltzing carelessly around and hardly takes a scratch from literally thousands of rounds aimed straight at him. It's fun, it's silly, it's entertaining, it's the sort of forgettable escapism that makes movies.

Spy Game was a pretty standard for the genre. It's all just an excuse to show someone on the inside beating the corrupt system.

The Grand Budapest Hotel could best be described as peculiar. Dark in places, cartoon-like in others, arty and edgy cinematography. Sort of interesting, and you can see why it won awards, but ultimately unsatisfying.

Art of the Steal continued the peculiarity. It seemed excessively contrived and artificial.

Then there was The Big Bang, which wasn't too bad. There was a theme in several of the movies here in telling the story through a series of flashbacks, which was continued in this one. It sort of flips oddly between between plain and gritty and being very stylish, which is a bit distracting.

We actually enjoyed The World's End. The plot is completely stupid, the characters little better, the idea that the world has been taken over by robots with blue paint for blood is laughable, but the overall effect is surprisingly plausible. The one thing you simply can't believe, though, is that after 20 years all the pubs in the Golden Mile are still in business. No, that's totally out of order.

Birthday Weekend

Another year older, another year wider. Actually, that's not true - a few minutes in the pool at the gym every morning are improving my health and keeping that middle-aged spread under control.

Saturday we went to Rockers Steak House, on Mill Road in Cambridge. We noticed it at about the time it opened, wandering along at the Mill Road Winter Fair, and had a meal there earlier this year. That was pretty good, so we went back for more. And the food and service were again excellent - we had the sharing platter, the sirloin and rib-eye, and I broke with my normal tradition by having the chocolate brownie. There are a number of new steak restaurants in Cambridge; Rockers gets my vote.

It's a long bank holiday weekend. We went out Norwich way and stayed Sunday night at Dunston Hall. We keep getting these offers mailed to us by Secret Escapes, and this was about the first time we could use one. The weather was fine, we just wanted to relax and chill. In the afternoon we simply had a drink on the terrace, and I had a basic cream tea - one of the best scones I've had in years. The only real criticism there was they seemed very short on staff, so it took a while to get served. In the evening we skipped the main restaurant for the bar - I went for a different arrangement and had the cheese board (in the dessert section) followed by a lemon tart, both were excellent. And the included breakfast in the morning was pretty good too - sausage, egg, and bacon were just right which makes a change for a hotel - although again they seemed a little short and were struggling to keep everything stocked. But overall, a relaxing and enjoyable day away.

We had a couple of sessions in the pool, which is a decent size. Once we had found it - the hotel is a bit of a rabbit warren.

We asked about spa treatments as well, but they were full. So we went to Imagine at Blofield Heath, just down the road. We had the Luxury half-day for two, which basically means chilling out in their facilities for half a day and having an hour's worth of treatments. We both went for massages - speaking for myself I'm not overly fussed about skin texture, but anything to soothe tired and aching muscles is good. This time, I had the hot stone massage, which was a new one - and worked really well with the heat working on those tense muscles. I found the little stone between the toes a litle odd at first. As well as the usual spa facilities, there's a relaxation room, and a couple of pods in the garden for chilling out in as well, which are really nice. To finish, we had afternoon tea in the garden, sitting by the ponds with a family of newly hatched ducklings for company.

Trying to do too much

We're looking around for a new TV. The old one is a bit long in the tooth, although it's actually a staggeringly good TV - but it's a CRT and not HD (although it is a high-resolution TV that does upscaling), so eventually it'll become obsolete, we'll lose compatibility with everything providing inputs, and it does take up rather a lot of space in the lounge.

One rather strange trend I notice is that almost every electronic device attempts to include everything but the kitchen sink. All the Smart TV stuff is, frankly, gunk.

And it's broken at so many levels. Let's cover a couple.

So, in a decent home cinema system, you connect all the inputs to an A/V receiver or some other master device. So why on earth would the TV have a gazillion inputs on the back as well?

Any decent TV seems to come with a million ancillary functions - all this Smart stuff. As do many Blu-Ray players. As do games consoles. As does your phone, computer, and tablet. There's massive duplication going on here. And why on earth, given that you are likely to have all these other devices already offering this functionality, would you want to cripple all your other devices with substandard clones of the same functionality.

I want my TV to display the best possible picture, and to concentrate purely on doing that. I want my Blu-Ray player to play disks, and to concentrate purely on doing that. I want my games console (if I could ever find any decent games, that is) just to be really good at gaming. Adding the extra functionality adds cost, leads to compromises in core function, and will soon become obsolete. Not only that, but the TV offers a much poorer interface that a dedicated device.

The crazy thing is that, in a fully connected home, integrating this level of functionality into every device is unnecessary. Want to browse the web on the big screen? Simply use AirPlay or the like to teleport the display from your laptop or tablet.

I guess my Unix background shows through here, but I want each device to do one thing and do it well, and then I can join them together to provide a complete solution.

Where have all the good games gone?

Years ago, we bought a Sega Mega Drive. It cost us what seemed like a small fortune at the time, and games were pretty expensive. We played maybe a small handful of games extensively - Sonic and variations, and Desert Strike was fantastic. Yes, we still have it, although it doesn't come out all that often.

My brother had a SNES. We borrowed it for a while, just to play one game - Zelda. This was in a completely different league. Not too long ago, I actually went out and bought myself a Game Boy with the rereleased Zelda, and considered it money well spent.

The next console was a PSone. This has been heavily used, but largely for one particular game. Spyro: Year of the Dragon is just superb. You just can't get better. The predecessors were OK, too, but Year of the Dragon was clearly the pinnacle.

We have a PS2 as well. Looking around, there's not much available. The Spyro game for it is dreadful, and there's little else. The kids liked the Eye Toy games, but they've outgrown it and it hasn't been turned on for ages.

The Wii was - and still is - tremendous fun. But largely for Wii Fit and the odd sports game, where the board and the controller work really well. I haven't seen a more conventional game that's generated even a flicker of interest.

To be honest, I don't see myself buying a new console. I simply haven't seen one game that I can see myself enjoying, so what's the point?

I've also dropped out completely from PC games. Years ago, there were wonderful games available - I found Pod addictive, lost too many evenings to Caesar III, Age of Empires 2, Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, Rise of Nations, and Zoo Tycoon. Some of the updated versions were pretty dismal - Age of Empires III and Zoo Tycoon 2 were shockingly inferior to their predecessors, and there's a whole genre of games that's largely disappeared. Not only that, getting them to work on a current system is at best frustrating, if possible at all.

(And that's without Flight Simulator, a franchise that has largely vanished without trace - it once had a vibrant community and lots of community add-ons, I even built some scenery myself.)

The console and PC games industry has largely got itself to blame; potential customers with considerable disposable income won't bother getting their wallets out for any of the current garbage that's on offer.

Nowadays, I tend to play lightweight games on my iPad. In many ways, the game ecosystem provided by small mobile devices and tablets brings you back to the earlier games - simple, addictive, and fun. (One thing I didn't mention above is that we've collected a fair number of original Game Boy games, some have aged extremely well.)

One of my favourites right now is Harbour Master HD. It's a very simple premise, as with all good games - send the boats into harbour and out again, without any crashes. Addictive as anything.

There are a lot of games on the iPad and mobile devices that are ideal for killing short amounts of time. Puzzles, various logo games, pattern matching, brain training, and the like. The ones that work well are ideally suited to the platform, and fit around a busy lifestyle.

Maybe I am looked at the past through rose tinted spectacles, but I still want to know where all the good games have gone.