Picture posts

Regent’s Canal, connecting Paddington with Limehouse since 1820. I spend 80 kilometres of my time there every week, so I decided to bring along a camera. I never understood why some people get bored when they run, there is just too much to think about, too many things to look at. Hipsters, hippies and hamsters, to name but a few…

…now you know what the meat market in Vilnius looks like.

Mainly for grown-ups…

The Underground is full of posters featuring women with perfect lips, noses and breasts. A confidence-building start to a Monday morning, I imagine.

I secretly admire those a(d)ctivists using chewing gum and stickers to ‘customise’ these posters.

This one, featuring a maori inspired monster of a face, was spotted at Old Street.

…from a lovely walk in Hampstead Heath. London is feeling more and more like home.

There comes a point in the life of a doctoral student where the weight of the thesis becomes so unbearable that the mere sight of it leads to a state of nausea.

Then life moves on slowly and sooner or later, it becomes possible to say the word ‘thesis’ again, without any visible signs of discomfort. I am gradually making my way into the latter territory, and this weekend marked the passage of a key event in this healing process, graduation day.

At Oxford (and elsewhere, of course), this is a big thing. My brothers stole my camera for most of the day and took some jolly pictures.

Here are my favourites:

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If one day they decided to organise themselves in unions, my life would become much more difficult.

At some point in the future, I really, really want to return to Northern California and spend a couple of years there. Whenever I experience that craving, the foremost remedy that comes to mind is French toast…

Aside from the unique summer light and the fit people, one of the great things about Norway is the unspoilt nature. People tend to asume that Scandinavia is all pretty much the same but unlike Denmark, Sweden and Norway are packed full of mountains and forests – and not so much people.

Along the mountaineous fjords outside Stavanger and beyond, the landscape is dotted with cabins within walking distance of each other. Many of them unstaffed, the door is never locked and everyone can enter anytime. They are clean, tidy places equipped with wood burners, food and all reasonable amenities. Best of all, they are run according to an ‘honesty principle’, whereby people leave the place as they would like to find it and pay for whatever they have consumed. And that is it. (more…)

Thighs like spaghetti but well worth it. How wonderful it is to get out of London and reconnect for a while…