I didn’t realise how much I have come to rely on and expect that moving around Europe would be an easy, smooth, and familiar process until I touched down in Istanbul for the IAMCR conference starting tomorrow. The first sign of impending  disturbance? I didn’t receive one or more welcoming SMSes from different telephone companies telling me what their mobile phone rates were and how much it would cost to call, text, or send and receive data. Moreover, this reminded me that since it is not part of the EU, the rates charged by these companies would not be regulated by EU law. Things got more disconcerting when I got to the end of the queue with my passport and I was told that I needed a visa in my British passport. So that’s why the line for visas was so long! And of course it was no good my raiding my cookie jar full of euros for travelling–I’ve got a pocket full of lira.

Of course this is hardly chaos, and were I going a bit further east or south none of this would have caught me by surprise, but I seem to be a little bit ahead of the authorities in welcoming Turkey into the European Union–at least in my head. Time to recalibrate and look for somewhere to get a decent meal.

An interesting article on using nuclear power to solve our CO2 problems both because of where it is (in the New Statesman, a prominent left wing journal) and because just for a change the extensive comments afterwards actually appear to be largely from people with useful information to add.

As the BBC radio programme and podcast iPM relates, this image:

Has no meaning in the UK – it does not signify either that the product labelled can be recycled or that it was made with recycled material. The label is left on some products sold in the UK if they might be exported but it is certainly possible that this will make British consumers think products and producers are greener than they actually are…

Thanks to the rather handy Edwin C Bolles collection of historical and topographical London documents I just read this rather cheering quotation about my neighborhood (Highgate) from a 129 year old guide:

[John] Norden, whom we have quoted above, bears testimony to the healthiness of this locality. He writes: “Upon this hill is most pleasant dwelling, yet not so pleasant as healthful; for the expert inhabitants there report that divers who have long been visited by sickness not curable by ` physicke ‘ have in a short time repaired their health by that sweet salutary air.” Indeed, the place is still proverbially healthy, and therefore has been chosen from time immemorial as the site of hospitals and other charitable institutions. It is worthy of note that Defoe, in his “History of the Plague,” records not a single death from that fearful visitation having happened here, though it extended its ravages into and beyond the northern suburbs, and even as far as Watford and St. Albans; and his silence is corroborated by the fact that during the continuance of the plague only sixteen deaths are recorded in the register.

This is the last Google Ad I ever expected to see – and it doesn’t seem to have been sent to me because of any particular email as I didn’t have any emails open at the time I read (or does Google Mail present ads based as well on some kind of aggregate of all of your mail?)

Alas the only languages other than English of which I have a useful knowledge are French and a smattering of Latin so I may not be much use to them. Then again, perhaps if you believe Yes Minister the French are our real enemies all along?

It’sa pity – I was a big James Bond fan when I was a kid…

Originally uploaded by Central Scrutinizer.

As BoingBoing points out this is a condo developer trying to cash in on the ‘coolness’ of the word. Too bad they didn’t register the domain on their poster (myblog.com).

Incidentally, in the five years I have had this weblog nobody has offered to buy this domain. I have no idea why. By now I figure I might as well keep it (though feel free to make absurdly generous offers!)

Just for fun and to give me an idea of who visits my site and why, I have put up a Frappr! map for this blog which I encourage you to visit and add yourself to (no registration required). Basically all this is is a really easy to use way of attaching a short note about yourself (and optional picture) to a map of the world. Use it to tell me about yourself, why you like (or don’t like) the site, and what kind of things you’d like me to write about more (or less). Or anything else you think I and the rest of the readers might find interesting!

PS if you are adding a URL just paste the address into the “shoutout” space – don’t try creating an HTML link as it doesn’t work.

PPS There are several web applications that let you annotate and share maps – I have started making an annotated list of these services using my favourite shared bookmark application, Netvouz.

My wife just took delivery of her new Dell notebook. She is rightfully afraid that because it is a PC I will be tempted to spend lots of time on it playing games… But when we started filling in the XP setup stuff one of the two example texts given for the computer’s “friendly description” on the network was “David’s Game Machine”. She hadn’t typed my name in… How did they know?! 😉

(See my earlier posting for more information and the link).morgage bank 5 3 loansinternet payday advance cash loancredit check with no loan $10000home loans 580$5000 check credit loan noagricultural loans wapersonal $25,000 loandownpayment mortgage 5 loanmilitary loans advanceloan mortgage 228

Buy Nothing Day UK (since yesterday wasn’t a holiday here as it is in the US).