Nik's Saga

There is a new bakery in town.

Well, strictly speaking I suppose it's not really a new bakery, but the expensive supermarket, Hagkaup, has just installed an oven in the bread aisle. I recognised that something was different when I walked into the shop and the aroma of fresh-baked bread drifted to my nostrils. Now while UK supermarkets cheat and do this with fake odours all the time, that particular bit of trickery hasn't reached here yet. The next thing I noticed was that the bread I was looking for wasn't in its normal place and that there were people Doing Something at the end of the aisle. As a result, I bought bread that was taken straight out of the oven, placed in a bag and handed to me without ever touching a shelf. It was a rapid dash home after that to enjoy warm bread with lashings of butter and a slice of cheddar. Mmm...

I could, for the most part, live on bread, butter and cheese in various combinations for quite a while. Recently I've been through a toasted cheese sandwich phase - not the sort you make in a toastie machine, but rather the type that involves a couple of slices of buttered bread and a couple of processed cheese slices (a slice of ham is optional) turned into a classical sandwich and then toasted. I used to do this under the grill but I've now got these nifty toasted sandwich bags that allow you to put a sandwich in the toaster to toast it without all of the filling falling into the crumb tray or burning itself onto the heating elements. The problem, I find, is getting the right cheese slices. Real Kraft cheese slices are best, as the cheaper ones tend to taste a bit artificial, and Dairylea is a bit too rich. I'll have to have a hunt to see if I can find them over here or whether they're another foodstuff in the meatball sub/decent cider category that leaves with the US Navy.

I know I've complained a lot about the lack of decent cheese over here, but there is one cheese that is worth celebrating - Rjómaosta, literally cream cheese. It's not as sharp or as expensive (!) as Philedelphia but is really good spread on soda bread or tortillas. I haven't been brave enough to try the varieties with added bits yet, but I might give them a try eventually.
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Looks like Pharos is down again.

I can reach Icelandic websites but nothing else, so who knows when this one will make it to LJ? This happens sometimes; normally it's a result of JCBs or rats just south of Inverness. When the Pharos line goes down Iceland becomes completely cut off from the rest of the world. I think it's Pharos - it might be Faros, but whatever it is, it's the pipe that connects Iceland's internet to the rest of Europe, coming ashore on the west coast of Scotland and then joining the main UK backbone.

So no WoW for me tonight then. Which is a pity, as I'm beginning to get the hang of it. So far I've slain an assortment of monsters in the company of a teacher from London, a secretary and mum from Newtonwards in Northern Ireland, and a student in Sweden. This international thing is quite fun. Still, I have plenty of A&S type stuff to keep me busy.

The latest news on the Keflavík front is that the Icelanders are worried that the departure of the US will effectively close the international airport, as all of the power and other electrical systems are run by and from the base. There are not enough skilled electrical engineers in the country to handle it, according to today's news.

The joys of living on a small rock. :)
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I hear that the rest of Europe had a solar eclipse today.

Here - where, admittedly, the only thing we were due to see was a very small sliver taken out of the sun - we had ten tenths cloud cover complete with more snow. The same thing happened last time with the annular eclipse of last October. I seem to be unlucky with eclipses; I watched the 1999 one through cloud cover too. I have discovered the viking theory of eclipses - they are caused by the wolves that chase the sun catching up with it and eating it. It is therefore important to make as much noise as possible during the eclipse in order to frighten away the wolves.

Other than that I've not been up to a lot. I've been assigned my first scroll to do and it's for someone I know, which is nice. Nice, but scary as it's always a little more stressful doing these things for friends. It comes of having high standards, I suspect. I've got the design sorted and I've done a trial of the main illumination which seems to work well enough. It's based on one in the Aberdeen Bestiary. For the text I have been tempted by one of the batarde miniscule hands because it's bold and curvy at the same time.

I'm really going to have to find a UK supplier of gold leaf, as at present I use a 'gold leaf pen' which works but is definitely cheating! The gouache paints are working well but my Windsor and Newton (I never used to be able to remember that company name - on more than one occasion I've gone in search of 'Pratt and Whitney ink') white ink is proving very thick, almost paint-like, so I think I'm going to have to dilute it to use it with even a dip pen.
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This is a vital technique for getting your car out of a snowdrift.

In the few days I've been away Iceland has turned into a sub-arctic wasteland. When I got back to the car this morning I had to wade through a two-foot deep snowdrift to get to the door. I then had to reverse out through about a foot of drifted snow. Fortunately I know the appropriate trick for that one nowadays - short reverses to 'rock' the car onto the fresh snow to flatten it and then release the accelerator to allow the car to 'roll' forward again so that you don't just end up spraying snow everywhere.

It's good for the skiing though. :) We (the staff and students, that is) were due to go up one of the local lumpy bits in a snowmobile tomorrow, with the aim of coming down again on skis/snowboards/sledges/plastic bags, but the weather is too bad to take the snowmobile up there. We may go on Friday instead. I'm not sure if I'm going yet - I really ought to take the board out at least once this winter, and the opinion is that if I can get down the main run on the mountain then I can get down this one. We'll see how things go - I may be out to dinner with some visiting NASA types instead, I don't know yet.
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One advantage of a hire car is that you can stop off on the way to the airport.

I did this today on my way down to Heathrow. After an exciting trip down the M6 toll road, and a very nice lunch at Costa's at the service station thereupon, I met up with my friend Kate at Bicester Village for more coffee. We talked family, illnesses (her Dad isn't too well either), and her forthcoming wedding as we wandered around the designer outlets, occasionally gasping in horror at the prices.

Except in Books. Well, it would be rude to walk past Books and not go in, wouldn't it? Kate got a couple of wedding-related books and I picked one up on jewellery making (I've decided that the only way to get Period jewellery is to make it). She's getting married in Liverpool in the late summer and I'm going to head back to the UK a couple of days ahead of time to help out with the last minute arrangements. Think of me not as a wedding planner but more of a wedding gopher.

The flight was, as usual, late. I've come to the conclusion that there are three types of airlines:

1. Those where you arrive at the airport and think Ah, I take off at XX:XX


2. Those where you arrive at the airport and think Hmm... I wonder if I'll get away on time?


3. Those where you arrive at the airport and think I wonder how long I'll be delayed this time?

Any Icelandic international airline is definitely in the third category. The flight was a bit bumpy, and I didn't get into a bed until nearly 03h00, but the snow is back and all of the internal flights had been cancelled around tea-time, so even I got the earlier flight and it had arrived on time I'd still have to have stayed in Reykjavík overnight anyway. At least I was prepared for it.
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I got to talk to the doctor today.

We've hit the problem where Mum's got a sufficient (and, I desperately hope, temporary) cognitive deficit that I had to provide some 'prior habits' information to the doctor today because Mum just answered yes to everything. She's definitely deteriorated over the last day in that respect, and she also isn't eating or drinking without prompting.

The upshot of this is that I got to talk to the doctor. She's happy enough that the blood problems are now under control, and they just have to get a second body scan done (effectively for insurance purposes to make sure that they haven't missed anything) and CT scan to get more detail on the tumour. I'm also now on the list of people who can get information over the phone.

Which is definitely a Good Thing.
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Yesterday's travel was impressive, even for Iceland. :)

Akureyri to Reykjavík, no problem, ditto Reykjavík to Keflavík. The plane was supposed to take off at 16:20. At 16:20 the gate was opened. At 17:00 we pulled away from the gate and headed for the runway. At 17:05 we headed back to the gate because there'd been a booking cock-up (a serious flamingo, actually) and a senior politician and his wife - on their way to London to connect to a flight for India so as to go and open the new Icelandic embassy there - hadn't only been left behind, but hadn't actually been booked onto the flight in the first place (as far as I can tell). Then first class was full and they had to travel cattle with the rest of us, much to the annoyance of the wife. And of course, the only remaining seats were next to me. Finally we took off an hour late.

What I wonder about is how much the high ticket prices are a result of Icelandic airlines complete inability to depart or arrive at an airport on time. I don't think I've ever been on a flight that actually took off and arrived on time. This time, because we were an hour late to start off we had to spend twenty minutes in a holding pattern before landing at stand 214, miles from anywhere. It must cost the airlines a fortune in landing fines, and no doubt this is passed on to the passengers. No wonder it costs such a fortune to fly to or from Iceland. BA are due to start flights on the KEF/LHR route next month; I wonder if their timekeeping will be as poor? I fully intend to check them out.

As a result I was an hour and a half late collecting the car. Then I missed the M40 turning and ended up doing the M4/M5/M6 route, not getting into Liverpool until after 02:30. Still, I had a really interesting conversation over coffee at midnight with a musician/sound engineer/lecturer at a motorway service station just south of Birmingham. I do seem to be able to find interesting people to talk to when I travel.

Today I did a quick crafts shopping on the way to see Mum (well, if she will end up in hospital half a mile from Aberkan...) then went up to see her. She didn't look good, but looked better than I'd feared. They're fairly sure that it's a brain tumour, but one that's operable so that's a relief. It's just a case of keeping the heart problem and diabetes under control while they sort out the tumour (the tumour is, in turn, affecting the diabetes, so once that's cleared up the diabetes should respond much better than it has done).

I'll be going back in to see her tomorrow, so I'll see how things have progressed overnight.

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I got a parcel in the post today. From Australia.

Last week I wrote about making greetings cards for folks, as the greetings card industry over here is almost non-existant. I'd been forced to put fleur-de-lys in the corners as it was the only leaf cutter I had. Well, after that I got an email from Laren in Oz - Lady Jane Stockton, she who is responsible for the ever-fascinating and inspiring The Needle's Excellency - offering to send me some leaves, as she has (or had!) plenty spare from her scrapbooking endeavours.

And they've arrived! A parcel full of leaves and flowers of many kinds, and also other assorted useful bits and bobs. I suspect I detect the use of a Sizzix in there somewhere, and I fear that I may have to buy one in the UK myself. I am probably going to get quite carried away now. So many thanks to Laren, who is not only an incredibly talented person, but also a wonderful one too.

I've just finished an emergency card to take back with me, as I discovered yesterday that my oldest friend has gone completely mad :) and has got engaged. This is the Kate after whom my sister was named. Hopefully I'm going to be able to meet her for coffee on my way back to Heathrow on Monday. For now though, I must dash, as I have a plane to catch in less than an hour (no, I'm not late - we treat them like buses here; so long as you're there five minutes ahead of time you're fine).
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How do you create diagrams that blind people can understand?

That was the problem I set my students in this afternoon's Data Visualisation lab. I arrived in the lab with three data sets that they'd already seen and a box of assorted craft materials - various sizes and thicknesses of threads, beads, papers, plasticine, cotton wool, glue, scissors... the normal Blue Peter mixture - then divided them into three groups and gave them a data set at random.

What they did was quite impressive. I'd had several ideas already about how I'd tackle each of the data sets, but (as has often been the case in this course) the students came up with something completely different.

One team, when presented with a selection of geophysical and population-based data for four countries, effectively reinvented the qipu, replacing knots with different sizes of beads.



The second represented telephone calls on a network using cup-and-string telephone with beads showing the call volume.



The third team, set the problem of how to show relationships in medical data, produced a tactile version of a Mosaic Diagram.



Once the three displays had been completed we tested them by blindfolding members of the other teams and asking them to answer questions using the displays. It worked rather well, and folks agreed (with some surprise in some cases) that it actually worked.



I'm sure that even if they didn't think I was crazy before, this will have persuaded them. On the other hand, they can now go to prospective employers and mention that they have done some work on interfaces for people with disabilities. :) And now, when their future bosses ask them to create presentations of sales figures, current project status or whatever, they'll be able to do something much more informative than just draw a histogram.
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The belt is complete.

It was a bit tricky dealing with the end of the warp and the process eventually involved rewarping it onto a wooden spoon (eat your heart out, MacGuyver!) but I now have a belt that is exactly the right length to wear with my saxon dress. Now all I need to do is make one about 150% of the length so I can wrap it round my waist a couple of times in that strangely mediaeval fashion. I might even make a veil band in the same pattern to go with it, who knows? I also wrote a big 'T' and 'A' on the sidepiece of the loom, added a spare hairgrip, and suddenly it becomes much easier when I change direction, which made it much much easier.

I'm rambling, I know. I spoke to Mum on the phone and she seemed to come into and out of mental focus. OK, when out of focus she was silent rather than raving, but it was very uncomfortable. There's still no word on the cause, they're just doing all of the tests they can think of. I fear that I'm going to have to go in on Saturday and demand some explanations - what they've tested for, what the possibilities are and so on. I think that if I knew what we were dealing with I'd be less edgy about being a thousand miles away.
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I've almost completed my tablet woven belt.

It's driving me mad though - I keep finding myself turning the cards the wrong way, to the extent that I'm not sitting chanting 'towards towards towards...' and 'away away away...' just to keep track of it. And I always lose track when I have to move it down the loom. I may be forced to write 'T' and 'B' on the side of the loom and roll a rubber band up or down appropriately just to provide a some sort of visual aid. I think that next time I'll also shorten the interval between repeats so as to get a nice even diamond pattern.

I had a truly sinful dinner tonight. Bónus now does 'Euroshopper' brand foods which include a part-baked ciabatta. Real bread, still warm from the oven, with lashings of butter and slices of tasty cheddar. Mmmm.... anything that tastes that good must be sinful, I'm sure.
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That's what the weather feels like today - although I must admit there's a bit more atmosphere here.

It's very cold and very dry here, hence the allusion to Mars. What's left of yesterday's snow is blowing about in the wind like confetti. When you walk out of a building the cold air swirls up your trouser legs and chills your calves. Nevertheless, it's quite pleasant.

It's been a fairly busy day. As well as my usual writing and preparing lectures, tutoring (and indeed counselling) students, dealing with paperwork (I hate paperwork! Why ever did I let Mark persuade me to take on the Head of Programme role?), today is also the second-to-last day for getting my tax return filled in.

Here in Iceland we can, at least, fill them in on the Internet, and every year the tax office sends you a piece of paper telling you your password should you wish to do so. You still have to do it yourself though, and I really miss the British system where the finance department at work normally does it all for you. And, of course, it doesn't help that it's all in Icelandic. I have a theory that it's part of keeping people employed out here. If everyone has to fill in their tax forms then it makes work for the people who advise you on filling in your tax form...

So I had to go down to the bank to get my end-of-year (which was December 31st) details including all of the money into and out of my accounts (including interest) last year. Then I had to dash up to the craft shop to get some purple metallic thread to finish Kayte's birthday card if it stands the slightest chance of making it to her on time. Hmm... it might make far more sense to post it on Friday night when I arrive in the UK. Yup, I'll probably do that instead.

After all - the postal service here is sometimes so good I might as well be on Mars.
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This time to Orgy and Bess.

Yes, I did type that correctly. Among the Carry On DVDs my sister gave me was one volume of Carry On Laughing, the 1975 series of half-hour Carry On shorts from Anglia television. This one contains the Elizabethan Orgy and Bess together with the Arthurian Under the Round Table and Short Knight, Long Daze.

The Arthurian ones are fun, but the Elizabethan one is wonderful. It stars Hattie Jacques as Queen Elizabeth, Sid James as Sir Francis Drake and Kenneth Connor as Phillip II of Spain. As in Blackadder they've done a wonderful job on the costumes, which are fantastic. I've no idea where they got them from or whether they had them made specially, but I sat here drooling over them, particularly Hattie's.

Hattie Jacques looks absolutely magnificent. I've always had a soft spot for Hattie - a certain kind of empathy, if you will. Big Woman Syndrome, that's what it is. I think that I may have to replicate her dress - I wonder what people would say if I replied, when asked about the source, I were to say 'Hattie Jacques wore it in a Carry On short? Or does anyone recognise the dress and can give me a more appropriate source?



I do now have a mental association problem... I know that Kevin is getting black 'bethans. I also know that he laughs just like Sid James. Allow me to explain with another photo:



See what I mean?
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I've discovered one of the eternal verities - never try playing an online game during the day at the weekend.

I was pretty sure I'd have lag problems, and I was absolutely right. This is reassuring because, apart from anything else, it makes sure that I don't get completely sucked into the game. Instead I've spent the day weaving, reading and making my sister's birthday card.

Yesterday someone asked about tablet weaving. Here, as promised are the photos.



This is the loom that I got at Kingdom University in November. Warping up three-and-a-bit metres was a pain, and when I next do it I'm going to have to find some way of preventing the balls of wool from getting tangled together.



The design is one from the Miklagard Garrison article - it's effectively weave c with regular reversals. I set up the tablets from memory so it's slightly incorrect in that there are two tablets at the same orientation at each of the change of direction points (tablets 5/6 and 15/16) which means that it's one out in the middle. This is the main reason why I'm going to keep this one myself to turn into a belt and will do Gonz a pair using the correct pattern. :)



I'm going to have to see if I can get some smooth plastic tablets, as the wooden ones I have need a lot of tlc in terms of oiling and sanding before I can use them. So for now I'm using the classic trick with the playing cards. :) Note the highly technical tensioning device - it works, so I'm happy. I think that when I do the set for Gonz I'll thread the tails through the holes in the board so that they don't get tangled up.

It's not taking me as long as I thought it would to actually do the weaving. I can do about six inches of weave in twenty minutes, but it then takes another ten to move the piece on, reset the tension and remember which way I'm supposed to be turning the tablets next. Nevertheless, I've now got over a metre of it done. If I'm really assiduous I might even get it finished this weekend.

All this to the gentle accompaniment of Classic FM. Ahhhh....
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I've just been reading the Europe Diary bit of the BBC news website and it started me thinking.

Milosovic was brought to trial at the Hague for crimes against humanity. Now, ignoring the fact that other leaders might be equally culpable of such crimes, it occurs to me that this has painted the Serbian people as the villains of Europe for the modern day. The cynic in me wonders if there must always be a people who are the scapegoat nation? For instance, Germany has been 'rehabilitated' over the last fifty-odd years so that now it's only Israel that carps on about the Nazis. Europe therefore needs a new target for its campaign to appear moral and upright and the Serbs are the ideal target.

The political situation in the UK at the moment has also made me think again about the way a government can act without the support of the populace. History (which is of course written by the victors) damns the German people for supporting Hitler, and now will no doubt damn the Serbian people for supporting Milosovic in the same manner. I'm definitely beginning to doubt history's judgement on that one.

Footnote: No, I don't think we should have gone into Iraq, but now we're there I think that our armed forces should have all the support we can possibly give them.
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Work has provided several frustrations for me today.

At any other time I'd probably handle them with a bit more grace but I'm a teeny bit stressed out right now. On that front, Mum was taken into hospital this morning as a result of all of the tests and has been given a second battery of tests including ECGs and so on, but has perked up a bit after a couple of shots of insulin. No-one seems too worried at present, which is quite a relief.

Naturally I've been looking at short-term travel options. I checked the Icelandair one-way tickets and promptly had to re-locate my jaw from where it had dropped onto the floor. Over £630 - although it was first class as, seemingly, no-one who isn't a rich businessman buys single tickets. I've also discovered that if I drive London to Liverpool I can actually do the trip in about 12 hours rather than 24, although I'm not entirely sure of the wisdom of driving that distance if I did have to go home suddenly.

In the meantime, then, I'm going to distract myself by making various cards and by playing WoW.
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... And heal them.

That is my task for the evening. Due, in part, to a particularly stressful couple of days I went out today and bought WoW. I know it's going to eat my time but this is the plan. I really don't want to have time to think right now. I fear that my connection isn't particularly good and I'm going to have lag problems, I know that I need to add a bit more memory to the laptop, but it should keep me occupied and my mind off what's going on in Liverpool right now.

Last night I got a phone call from my sister Kayte to tell me that on Sunday Mum had had a fall and couldn't get up until Dad arrived back from somewhere. She was having problems with actually moving her limbs, which happened at one point last week. I told her to go to the doctor, of course. She has type-2 diabetes and is feeling pretty lousy with it - she has to wait until late April for a hospital appointment to get her onto injected insulin, it seems.

Earlier in the week I spoke to her and she sounded pretty unwell. Nothing, however, would dissuade her from taking the local pensioners on a holiday up to Dunoon (in this weather?!?), reasoning that if she didn't want to go on the days out she didn't need to. Admittedly she is the organiser of this event, so she really didn't want to have to pull out. As it is, Kayte eventually persuaded her that she really couldn't go (Kayte's much better at bullying Mum than I am) and then had to spend ages trying to find my phone number on her computer because my mobile was turned off. Needless to say the mobile is now turned on.

So NHS Direct told her to go to A&E. A&E sent her home and told her to see her own doctor. The district nurse came to take blood and will be back tomorrow with the results. Hopefully it'll mean that she'll be fast-tracked to the diabetes clinic as a result. In the meantime I'm ready to drop everything and fly back to the UK at 24 hours notice.

This is why I need to keep my mind occupied right now.
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Today marks the launch of Google Mars.

Google Earth didn't really do anything for me - it doesn't have hi-res images of Iceland so you can barely make out the big sports centre down the road, never mind my apartment block. Google Moon was more fun - particularly when I discovered that the moon really is made of green cheese. Google Mars, however, now that is an interesting site.

I have to admit to being a bit of a Mars groupie. I have the small globe of Mars on my desk in the office. I have the Traveller's Guide to Mars on my office bookshelf, with a signed Beagle by Colin Pillinger and Bob Zubrin's The Case For Mars. When I was at the National Space Centre last week I picked up a copy of Volume I of the NASA Mars Mission Reports. I know the hiking path up the Face.

Yes, I am quite sad. :) So it was with a bit of trepidation that I visited Google Mars, mainly because I expected it to be like Google Moon, pretty picutres but nothing too exciting. Instead, Google Mars has links to external NASA sites such as the THEMIS instrument on the Mars Odyssey Mission (try plugging 'Noctis Labyrinthus' into the Google Mars search bar - it comes up with a green tab and more pictures). I suspect that I'm going to spend some time over the next couple of days investigating it and its links.

Something to keep my mind off university politics, I think.
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The UK has stolen our snow.

That's the impression I've got from radio news and other people's journals today. Liverpool has snow. St. Andrews has snow. Even Newport has snow. Does Akureyri, Iceland, have snow? Nope. There is so little snow here that the ski slopes are only partly open again, and I suspect that's only due to the snjómokster. It's still well over a month to go to the bank holiday marking the beginning of summer, the day when everyone celebrates by going skiing, and I fear that they're going to have to do something else this year. Having said that, over the last couple of weeks we've had three nights when we've had two inches of snow that has then melted away within twenty four hours.

Instead of sking this weekend I've devoted myself to humour. Last night I watched Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I'm sure the neighbours must have wondered what was happening as I haven't laughed that much and that loudly for months. Then I spent this afternoon on the sofa with Flashman and an amused grin.

The only down was that I tried to watch the Grand Prix on RÚV and listen to it on Five Live via the internet but, like football matches, the commentaries are only available in the UK. I must see if I can find a UK proxy to get around the problem in future.
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Name that SF radio series. :)

I've been very organised and productive this morning. I finished unpacking, put away the ironing board, did some washing and the washing up, tided away the CDs and the duty-free AND made a greetings card from scratch. I must remember though, that I really need a couple of leaf-shaped punches that aren't fleurs-de-lys or holly. Maple leaves would work quite nicely, or maybe chestnut leaves.

This card-making thing is becoming quite exciting. I think it has something to do with having too much time and not much choice in store-bought greetings cards over here. Over the past twelve months I've acquired a surprising number of stencils, papers, tools, punches and other general card-making stuff. It certainly surprised me when I tried to spread them out across my new table (which is just the right height and size for a single crafter). I've just got a couple of new stencils for making cut-out folding cards and I can see that I'm going to have to get the square ones to go with the round ones. The light box for embossing was definitely a good buy, although I can't find my embossing point and ended up working with a tapestry needle instead. Never mind - it still worked.

There was a sad academic geek moment when I found that my mail today included my first issue of ACM SIGCHI Interactions, particularly when it allowed me to identify a Nordic HCI conference where I can submit a paper on my Iceland Express usability study.

All this and I watched the Grand Prix qualifying. It's nice to see it back to having more than one car on the track at once. I was very impressed with the balance of Raikonnen's car when he managed to bring it in on only two wheels. This season, although I still have a soft spot for Schumie and really wouldn't mind too much if he won the championship again, I intend to support Honda. After all, with Reubinio and Jensen what isn't there to like about them? Second row after Ferrari, huh? Tomorrow's Grand Prix could be quite fun.
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It has been an unreal sort of day.

Ever since I read the news that a good friend has been diagnosed with a quite advanced cancer I've been rather distracted, wandering around in a bit of a daze. It took several readings to sink in and made me realise that I've reached that point in life where I have to recognise that things like this are going to start happening to my friends. My thoughts go out to her and her partner.

As a result, and because suddenly everyone wanted to talk to me for some reason, I didn't manage to finish writing the lecture I was working on even though I used this as an excuse to skip the university Þórrablot. I ate the putrefied shark and the rams' testicles last year after all. The smell was difficult to escape though, so I left the office a bit early and went shopping for a table. I'd decided that the big pale table, while wonderful, was impractical and that what I really need is a small simple worktable with a couple of chairs. I found a nice square one with a folding leaf to make it large enough for a Risk board and it wasn't too expensive either.

After that it was off to the needlework shop to rectify a dreadful situation - I had no bits of fabric lying around that I could use for an embroidered card. Terrible! And well, the needlework shop is just next to the card craft shop so I had to go in there too... and came out with 16 gold- and silver-coloured aiglets. It's not easy finding these, even in the UK, so I snapped them up while I could. I think that I now have enough to make the various braids I've promised various people.

Tonight I think I shall curl up with an embroidery and a tub of B&Js (although not necessarily at the same time).
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It isn't often that work makes me wonder if I should have applied to join MI5.

Today, though, I found myself with this large pile of assorted airline, bus and train tickets for someone over a period of almost a month and asked to add them all up. In three different currencies. In fact, there were actually tickets for two separate people, taking two different routes at two different times but meeting up in the middle for a day then leaving the country together. On top of this there were items that only made sense if the 'target' had either made the same mistake twice or had met up with a third person. It took me a good hour to work out what was going on but I did manage to build a coherent picture in the end. Clearly the recent broadcasting of Spooks on RÚV has had an effect on me. :)

Other than that I've spent my day writing a spreadsheet to do all sorts of automatic calculations in order to finish the workshop accounts. I had already done a fair bit of this when my desktop machine died the other week, but I've made a few changes to the design and it's better this time around. I've also got the rest of the cotton to start the tablet weaving, although I still have to make some more tablets (I'm slicing and dicing a deck of playing cards for this purpose). As I didn't get in from work until nearly 19h30, though, tonight I may well just vegetate.
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I'm up, but the Icelandic economy is going down.

Or so says Merrill Lynch, which has downrated the country's credit rating from A to BBB. The economy is overheating, we have rampant inflation, and external debts that can in no way be covered by the minimal amount of industry and exports. There are only so many markets for fish, wool and horsemeat. All of these things are getting worse far more rapidly than the international monetary markets had expected. Iceland is now considered to be an 'emerging' market rather than a 'stable' one. The end of the current boom is in sight and it's not looking like there'll be a soft landing. Iceland is probably in for a recession, starting in September (for various reasons to do with international bonds) if not before. Ministers blame the banks, and the banks blame the ministers.

This could cause problems. After all, right now the UK is cheap, as far as I'm concerned. But if the krona drops to, say, 150 to the pound, things will become much more expensive. Not quite as expensive as they are here, but that's a 20% hike in prices right off. Fortunately I don't have any investments larger than a small savings account to think about, but if I had then it would certainly be the time to move them back to the UK.

You might imagine that I'd be used to prices over here by now, but things still sometimes surprise me. I went looking for a small hand drill for jewellery making and other such tasks. I had no luck, but did see a basic Dremmel for over £100. Even the chap in the shop admitted that he'd bought his in the UK. It's an interesting point, that. Everything is so expensive here that even the natives go abroad to buy things. Now I'm not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, but it does occur to me that any economy where large portions of the population go shopping abroad must be in trouble.
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As threatened, my first attempt in wire-beaded jewellery.



Red 1-decade rosary

Glass beads and metal wire. This was my first piece of wire-linked beading. The number of beads in the packet led themselves to being turned into that most Spanish of dress accessories, a rosary. Although, strictly speaking, the main beads should all be the same size and shape, but I worked with what I had.
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I had a bit of a scare today.

After work today I went up to Abuðin, the craft shop, only to discover that it had gone. Emptied. Disappeared, leaving only a notice in the window. Now this notice was, of course, in Icelandic, which made it a bit of a challenge. There was a word that contained the root hlíð, which means 'side', and something that looked like 10-11. It so happens that 10-11 is the almost all-night supermarket around the corner. A little investigation allowed me to discover that the shop had moved to next door to 10-11. Some of the Icelandic must be sinking in, I suppose.

I don't really know how I ended up there in the first place, other than I was passing on my way to somewhere else. The siren song of a craft shop is a dangerous thing indeed. I ended up buying some card-making stuff and some glass beads and eyewires to make a first attempt at some jewellery making. It has occurred to me that if I'm going to do some Spanish-style garb then I'll need the accessories to go with it, one of which is going to be a beaded girdle or possibly a 15-decade rosary. I'm a bit reluctant to go for the rosary but it would be appropriate for the period. Whichever I eventually do I'll have to learn how to do wired beads, hence the trip to the craft shop today and the initial attempt to wire my viking beads ready to wear at Double Wars.

This is to be one of my next A&S projects; the other is a pair of leg-wrappings for . I'm cheating a bit and using cotton rather than wool for these as I hate weaving wool - I find that the fibres felt up in a manner I find unpleasant and frustrating. So they'll be 'blue linen', okay? Anyway, this will make them easier to wash after he's been wandering about a muddy Swedish field. I'm also tempted by the idea of making some brocade trim after examining some that Estrid was making at Protectors, but that will be normal weaving rather than tablet weaving. Part of the plan for tonight then is to warp up the little inkle loom that I bought at Kingdom University in November.

Photographs may follow.

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The Icelandair definition of 'just' is clearly not the same as mine.

On the flight back this afternoon the First Officer clearly announced that our flight plan would take us over Manchester and then we'd cross the coast 'just north of Liverpool'. Now I happen to know the area 'just north of Liverpool' pretty well, and Morecambe Bay is definitely a little more than 'just' north. Walney Island, 'just' off Barrow-in-Furness is pretty obvious, as are the Vickers dockyards. It's the equivalent of saying 'just north of Reykjavik' and meaning Borganes.

Still, the travel back was relatively painless. I did some useful shopping at Heathrow - a couple of DVDs, some books, some interesting fruit infusions, that sort of thing - in particular because there are things I know I can get at the airport that I can't easily get anywhere else. Like decent fountain pens, for instance. Most of the time if you want a fountain pen you can pick up a Parker or a Papermate and that's about it. Both Heathrow and Stansted, however, have a Pen Shop where the range is much wider, and where they don't bat an eyelid if you ask for one with an italic nib rather than a round nib, or for the converter so that you can fill it with ink rather than using a cartridge. I ended up a very nice pen with a narrow italic nib and the converter for under £20; it'll be ideal for late-Period scrolls.

After this last weekend I've decided to go to Double Wars in May rather than Warbands in June. The theory was that I could fly from Akureyri as Iceland Express are doing Akureyri-Copenhagen flights as of May, but unfortunately these start the day after Double Wars finishes, so I'll still have to go down to Keflavik first. Never mind - it'll still be cheaper and longer than Warbands and I've never been to a non-ID event before. I've registered for the entire event, although I may have to cut it back a bit closer to the time, but I can update my reservation later if necessary.

It was a good weekend, one of the more enjoyable events I've been to. I got to meet up with lots of friends - and I even managed to put faces to LJ handles in some cases!
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Today I spent time with an old friend, and with a newer one.

When I was driving up to Leeds on Friday I wondered what I should do today on my way back down to London. I reasoned that I'd be on the road again before lunch, and as I didn't have to be in London until the evening I might as well take advantage of the opportunity to visit something on the way. I wondered what stately homes and historic sites would be signposted on the motorway, and thought that I'd make my mind up on Sunday morning. It was actually much easier than that. As I approached Leicester I saw the signs for the National Space Centre and, well, that was it really. Even the Royal Armouries in Leeds were going to come second to that. (Yes, I know I'm a mad SCAdian, but I was a mad space scientist first.) So today I left the site at 11h00 and reached the centre at 13h00.

Part of me, the part that has a degree in astrophysics, was disappointed because it's too low-level. But the rest of me, the bit that believes in science education and that wants the public to be just as excited by astronomy and astronautics as I am, though that it was a great place. It's clearly aimed at kids, but at intelligent kids. The centre hosts birthday parties - now that's something I'd have loved! At the age of eight to twelve, having a birthday day out with my schoolfriends at a science centre... it would have been fantastic! Except that I don't think that any of my friends would have been quite as interested as I would...

But anyway, it was good to see kids who were interested and excited by all of the hands-on objects and the displays. Unfortunately this did have the side-effect that I didn't get to play with everything. Never mind - I might be going back later in the year for a dinner party and lecture, when there won't be kids to get in my way. Just ex-Shell chief engineers and captains, but I can handle them far more easily than I can handle kids.

This was where I spent time with my old friend, the Blue Streak rocket that is now resident at the Space Centre on semi-permanent loan from Liverpool Museum. As a teenager I spent many, many hours in the Time and Space gallery at the museum looking at the Blue Streak and the Black Knight launcher that accompanied it (and is still on display there). I have to admit that the Space Centre display is more impressive - you really do get a better sense of scale when it is upright rather than horizontal.

I spent about three hours there before heading down to London, where I met up with a newer friend - Asra, the wife of my colleague Syed - for dinner at Heathrow. We sat and nattered for a couple of hours before I finally headed back to the Heathrow Travel Inn to get some sleep. A good day, and definitely a good way to distract myself from Post-Event Blues.
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I've run the A&S competition, handed the cloak on, and it's now Someone Else's Problem.

After a late night of conversation I emerged from my bunk late this morning (08h10!) but ready to start organising A&S stuff. In the end I didn't run the competition until the afternoon, and as the fencing tourney took place in the morning I could have taken part after all. Pah! So as I couldn't fight I shared the marshalling with instead. It was exceedingly photogenic - fencing in a snow-covered field. We had four entrants and the eventual winner was Lord Caradoc of the Shire of Raven's Keep. The heavy tournament was going on at the same time, but I was too busy to take any notice of it. The weather was unfortunate, as the snow meant that the equestrian tournament couldn't take place for fear of injuring the horses. A pity that, because the equestrian folks are always impressive - more so, in my opinion, than the heavy fighters. There are rumours of horses large enough for me... now there's something I'd love to try - jousting!

The afternoon was given over to the A&S and archery competitions. I had hoped that I'd have time to do some archery, but didn't in the end. We had five entries for the A&S: some leather armour by Lord Alex, an illumination by Siobhan, some embroidered dress accessories by Johanara, period coffee from Lady Caitlin, and what was eventually decided to be a performance piece, Barter, from Lady Estrid, Lord Torkill and Lord Cynewulf. It was very close, but Siobhan from Flintheath was the eventual victor.

Court and the following Parliament were blessedly short, although Gonz was inducted into the as-yet-unnamed order for service to Insulae Draconis, which was nice. Thereafter it was feasting time and, although the feast was rather slow and some of the dishes undercooked, it eventually metamorphosed into a very enjoyable bardic circle. For the second event in a row I literally sang myself hoarse. I think I may need some more practise ahead of time in future. And to remember to pack my songbook as well.

As usual, I wrote a new song for the event:

Tourney Time
Summertime from Porgy and Bess

Tourney time, and the heavies are fighting.
Rattan thumping, and their shields held high.
Their muscles rippling and testosterone thumping.
So hush, dear my lady, don't you sigh.

Tourney time, and the fencers are fighting.
Blades a-flashing, and their daggers held high.
Their cloaks a rippling and their repartee flying.
So hush, dear my lady, don't you sigh.

Feasting time, and the minstrels are playing.
Voices ringing, singing low, singing high.
The notes a rippling, and their repartee flying.
So hush, dear my lady, don't you sigh.

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I'm back in the UK and I've brought the snow with me.

Although it wasn't the snow that caused the travel problems. Things started at 05:30 this morning when the airport bus didn't arrive. I'd stayed overnight at the hostel in Reykjavík as usual, this time sharing a room with one of my students who was flying home to Germany for the weekend for her father's birthday. Her original plan was to stay overnight at the airport, but Keflavík won't let you do that as they completely shut down overnight, so I suggested that she come up to the relatively cheap hostel rather than trying to sleep at the bus station. We booked onto an early morning bus, but half an hour after it's projected arrival time there was still no sign of it, so the chap from the hostel rang the bus company to see what had happened. They claimed that they hadn't received a fax booking any collections from the hostel that morning.

By this point Jana, plus two older Belgian women and two more German guys were rather stressed as they had early flights. Eventually the six of us got a taxi to the airport, which was a hell of a lot quicker and only slightly more expensive than the FlyBus, but everyone got to their aircraft in time. In Jana's case, this was because it was running on Icelandic Time and was therefore half an hour late. It wasn't the only one, as it turned out. My Heathrow flight was an hour late, seemingly because the connecting New York flight was late.

At last I got into Heathrow and went out to collect the hire car - into the snow. Not a lot, and not actually what would count as snow in Iceland, but for England it was definitely snow. They had a glut of silver Mercedes C-types at the car hire place and tried to persuade me to upgrade, but I was perfectly happy with the sexy metallic red Fiesta. I know... I have no soul. :) The M4 was slow, the M25 slower, and then as I headed north the M1 became slow due to something that was far more worthy of the name 'snow' than the stuff in London had been. It occurred to me then that I probably had more experience driving in such conditions than anyone on the motorway around me. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

Now although I've driven to Bramhope several times before I've always approached it from the north, never the south. This unfortunate state of affairs led to me driving around Leeds for an hour trying to find the roads suggested by the RAC, although it did enable me to find an ASDA and pick up some vital cider supplies. The campsite is appropriately snowy, and it looks like we might have fun with the fencing tomorrow. I wish I wasn't being quite so honourable and concentrating on the A&S competition - I'd really like to do some fencing.

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Because I think someone's stolen it.

So after yesterday's computer trauma I went in to work to ignore my nice shiny computer while I got some work done. Eventually I got my funding proposal done and out of the way and even fitted in a bit of teaching in a student lab.

Putting in a proposal in which the numbers are in millions is a very strange feeling. Although there are over a hundred krona to the pound, so a million krona is less than ten thousand pounds, a million krona still seems like much more. I think it's the emotive 'million' word that does it.

I also managed to get a pile more 'administration' done - I refuse to call it 'management' because I am NOT a manager and have no wish to be one. I thought that everything would calm down this week but that just hasn't been the case.

Now I'm off to pack ready to fly south tonight to catch the Heathrow flight tomorrow. Oh yes, and I've got a whole pile of things to print out first. And... and... waaaahhhh!!!
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Today my office machine died.

Naturally it couldn't have picked a better day for it. Today was the deadline for a research proposal, a proposal upon which I was going to spend a good four hours of my time. Then I went into the office and found that overnight the machine had locked itself, refusing to respond to mouse, keyboard, on-off switch, anything. This first happened on Monday, when I fixed it by cycling the power at the mains. Today, though, this had no effect, in that once I'd powered off and on then switched on again it went straight into the same locked mode.

The result was that I ended up coming straight back home for my laptop and worked on that all day. Of course, that meant that I had to spend time setting it up for the university network. And talk to various people. And so on...Fortunately the death of a computer is considered sufficient reason for not handing in the application today, which means I can work on it tomorrow instead. I intend to stick a notice on my door saying Please Do Not Disturb as soon as I get in in the morning. I did manage to get the machine to start after lunch to write a couple of CDs of recent important stuff (exam papers and the like. Eventually at 14:00 I went off to give a lecture and came back to find a nice shiny new HP machine on my desk. I am not going to play with it until I finish writing this application though.

Then I dashed out to buy the new sofa, which was duly delivered at 18:00 this evening. It was a bit of a squash as all of Kamilla's stuff was still here, but now that's gone the flat seems quite huge. The sofa is huge. I can lie full stretch on it and still have six inches of so of space. It still needs a darker throw on it, but it's nice and comfy. The table and chairs, though, may have to wait until next month.
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