Travelling

Today's travel is by: car from Upton to Birmingham International; train to Euston; tube to Victoria; train to Gatwick Airport; plane to Tallinn Airport; taxi to apartment.

I have not yet reached Gatwick so another seven hours of travelling lies before me.

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Windows

We now have double-glazed units throughout the house, which is a great relief and should make the place a whole lot warmer in the winter. The next job is to sort out the garden and I'm not looking forward to it.

The North

Lincolnshire at the moment, then on to Yorkshire. Back to London tomorrow, then even further north to Tallinn. Home again next weekend.

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Bishops Stortford

For reasons too mundane to list, I am currently stuck in Costa Coffee in Bishops Stortford. It is a grim little town and I will not, deliberately, return. 

Before you ask, the answer is "yes, the town's name is possessive". Annoyingly, the locals do not use an apostrophe. Heathens.

London

I am in London for the day, catching-up on goings-on in the office. For reasons that are not entirely clear, the air-conditioning in the office is turned off and, given that today is about the hottest of the year so far, the office is fairly warm. As soon as I can get back to my air-conditioned train...

At last...

Finally, after considerable anguish, I have an iPhone 3G. Seems to work really well - more comment to follow.

Windows

I am working from home today, partly because I returned from Tallinn last night and I need time to recover and partly because we are having the remainder of our single-glazed windows replaced by a local firm. There are six in total, including a large bay and a door; they have done the other four today (in about five hours) and will return on Monday to do the rest. 

And what a great job they've done! Assuming that the bay and the door are done to the same level of workmanship then I think we are going to be very happy indeed. I may have said this before, but next time we move to a house with single-glazed windows we will get them replaced immediately, not six years after we move in. Bring it on, Winter!

Crackers III - The Final Instalment

PZ Myers has been having problems with his crackers but I think he has now resolved them. Read all about it here: link.

Science-Based Medicine

I am not very keen on "complimentary and alternative medicine" and I will tell anyone who uses them that they are a complete waste of time and money. In many cases, time and money are all that is wasted, but this post tells the tragic story of a young woman who sought CAM treatment for early-stage breast cancer. You can probably guess how it ends.

Skimming through the 600-odd comments provoked by the post, it seems that doctors encounter problems of this sort with depressing regularity. CAM practitioners are the modern equivalent of blood-letters and witchdoctors and they should not be allowed to peddle their rubbish unchallenged. At best, their claims must breach advertising standards; at worst, they kill people.

iPhone Acquisition

I am still sitting in the departure lounge at Tallinn Aiport, trying to download a particularly large PDF, when I find myself browsing other frequently-viewed sites in order to kill time. O2's iPhone availability update page has been a favourite for a couple of weeks now and I have just caught myself searching for stock in towns through which my train passes this evening on the way home, as if there was any chance whatsoever that I could stop, find the store, buy a phone and then still make it home without being killed by the wife.

I think I will have to wait until tomorrow, then head into Fareham or Southampton. More news to follow shortly.

Tallinn Airport - The Return

Did I mention the free Wifi? I have not actually found anywhere in Tallinn that charges for Wifi but it still seems strange to sit in an airport with free (and decently fast) internet access. 

Tallinn Airport

I am sitting in the (post-customs) departure lounge at Tallinn Airport. The building is brand new but the air-conditioning is not working very well and the cafe is rather short of food. Apart from that it is very nice - clean, quiet, spacious, uncrowded.

Depeche Mode

For reasons which are not entirely clear, Tallinn boasts two bars, both run by the same company, dedicated to Depeche Mode (the 1980s synth group from Basildon). These bars apparently play only DM music and feature various items of DM-related memorabilia. Really strange.

Meat of Allah

The BBC, maintaining its reputation for world-class reporting, has an article about a lump of Nigerian beef imprinted with the name of Allah. Slow news day, I guess. 

iTunes

iTunes is starting to annoy me. As a music library it works really well but it keeps installing things that are not readily identifiable and that I do not want or need. Yesterday, while uninstalling an application, I found something called "Bonjour" and, because I knew I had not deliberately installed it, I removed it. It turns out that this is required by iTunes but the uninstaller does not tell you this and now I have to re-install iTunes.

I am also annoyed that there is no way to prevent iTunes installing QuickTime (which I do not use), iPod Service (I do not have an iPod) and a host of other minor programs that sit in memory consuming resource. And why do they offer only an "English (US)" option? Not very impressive.

Walking

Engadget has a story (link) about an exoskeleton designed to help the wheelchair-bound walk. Very neat.

Shepherd's Pie, Tallinn Style

Ok, so a bowl of shepherd's pie in an Irish pub in the middle of Tallinn might sound a little strange but it was actually not too bad and even though it wasn't exactly like the shepherd's pie I make at home it was close enough to function as comfort food.

Sunday Lunch in Tallinn

Once again I am in Molly Malone's, the Irish pub on the main square in Tallinn city centre. This time I'm here for lunch (Shepherd's pie) and I am hoping that the portion will be as large as yesterday's breakfast, which was huge.

Sunday Morning in Tallinn

It is just after ten AM here in Tallinn and I am sitting in a trendy restaurant drinking coffee (I had planned to have breakfast but their kitchen is not opening until 10:30 today).

I had a walk around the town centre before settling here, partly because it is a nice day and I fancied a walk and partly to encourage the muscles strained yesterday playing tennis to start working again. It didn't work and now I ache and I am still hungry so I am going to move on to a different restaurant, one with a working kitchen, and find some food.

New Anglican Bishop

It looks like the Anglican Church in Australia has a sense of humour. Have a look at the photo here and try to spot their newest convert.

Molly Malone's

I have just finished one of the largest breakfasts ever: 2 fried eggs, 3 rashers of bacon (I think, maybe four), mushrooms, tomato, a load of beans and two pieces of toast. Pretty good, although a couple of parts could have been warmer and it wasn't cheap (EEK 75, or £3.75). Nice relaxed atmosphere so I will be back for more food, possibly even tomorrow.

Irish Pubs

This afternoon, needing to get out of the apartment, I have come to Molly Malone's, an Irish Pub in the centre of Tallinn which is, unusually, run by Irishmen. An all-day breakfast has been ordered and, hopefully, I will shake off the post-tennis headache I have acquired.

Tennis

I played tennis this morning with a couple of guys from work. Great fun, although 2 hours is probably too long, especially as the sun was out for the entire time. I can't remember exactly when I last played, but I think it was 1989 or 1990. One of my opponents today would barely have been able to hold a racket at the time I last played, which makes me feel rather old.

iPhones

I tried to buy an iPhone last Friday but things did not go entirely to plan.

• On Friday, the O2 store in Fareham had sold their allocation hours before I arrived.
• On Saturday, the Southampton Apple Store had loads of iPhones but they were not able to upgrade existing O2 customers.
  
• CarphoneWarehouse had access to O2's upgrade system but no phones; they offered to order an 8Gb phone but without actually being able to give me a delivery date.

The O2 website suggests that new stocks are now in store with more arrive next Friday but their online upgrade system is offline at the moment. As I am in Estonia, there is a certain appeal to upgrading online and having the phone delivered to me at home next week but it looks like I will just have to struggle into town to pick one up in store. More news when/if I manage to obtain one.

Knives

The Prime Minister is quoted today on the BBC website (link):

"We will do everything in our power to prevent people having knives."

I guess that's the end of cooking as we know it - we will only be allowed safety blades and potato peelers in future. Who says the Government doesn't care?

New Solar Power Stuff

Developments in solar power continue apace and it is, I suspect, only a matter of time before we see the widespread introduction of domestic solar panels. The Economist has details (link) of a new technology that improves panel efficiency - worth a look.

Return of the Crackers

In a minor update to the post last week about PZ Myers and the cracker controversy ("One of our Crackers is Missing"), here is a quote from the website of the Catholic League (an American religious organisation operating from the headquarters of the Archdiocese of New York) written by their President, William Donohue, in response to Prof. Myers' blog:

“It is hard to think of anything more vile than to intentionally desecrate the Body of Christ. We look to those who have oversight responsibility to act quickly and decisively.”

Full press release is here: http://www.catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1459

I can think of several things more vile than "desecrating" a cracker and, of course, there is no way that the cracker can literally be transformed into the Body of Christ but how cool would it be to test the Resurrection Hypothesis? All we need to do is:

• Obtain consecrated biscuit ("The Body of Christ"),
• Pulverise biscuit, extract DNA of Jesus,
• Clone Jesus II using a extracted DNA and allow to mature for about 33 years,
• Take Jesus II to Israel and nail him to a tree,
  
• Seal corpse of Jesus II in a cave and wait.
  

What else might Jesus II do for us? How about:

• Heal the sick - there are plenty of people who cannot yet be cured by modern medicine and just think of the savings - the NHS could balance its budget in weeks!
  
• Feed Africa - give him a loaf, a fish and a major food distribution organisation and Bob's your uncle!
• Solve Global Warming - I'm not sure how, but Jesus II would have the answer.
  
• Peace in the Middle East - a long shot, even for Jesus II, but you never know.

This might be too much to ask of one man/God but why limit ourselves to only one? We can grow loads of Clones and spread them liberally around the world. Do you have a problem that needs a divine solution? Order your Jesus Clone over the internet, PayPal accepted, delivery in 25-30 years.

This is a brilliant idea and a fantastic business opportunity (maybe I should pitch it to Steve Jobs - would he go for an iJesus, I wonder?) and I would be on it like a shot if it were not for a couple of minor problems. Once I have worked through those, it's all systems go!

Estonian Air

I turned up at Gatwick yesterday at about 16:20 to take my regular flight to Tallinn only to discover that they had hugely overbooked the flight. About 20 passengers at the back of the queue, myself included, did not get a seat. The compensation (400 Euros, which I don't have in my sweaty paws yet) makes up for it and I am booked on this afternoon's flight, but it is all a bit of a pain.

One of our Crackers is Missing

Student kidnaps cracker - receives death threats!

This is not a joke - get the details here.

What we know about the Origins of Life

“And God said, let the NA precursors link together into a short noncoding kinetically favored chain and pseudoreplicate approximately statistically after their kind”

There's a good explanation of the current understanding of the Origin of Life here at The Panda's Thumb. It seems we know an awful lot more than I thought we knew.

American Torture Techniques

There have been lots of stories about the use of torture by the US and the defence has been that these practices are either vital for national security (which is clearly laughable) or not actually torture. One of these "questioning techniques" is Waterboarding and you can get a detailed description here with a video of the author (Christopher Hitchens) undergoing the process - his first-hand account makes unpleasant reading.

Tallinn for Beginners

I have been meaning to write some notes on Tallinn for a while but, what with one thing and another, it has taken until now to get round to it. Here they are, in no particular order.

Suitcases - Tallinn is a medieval city with more than it's fair share of cobbled streets. If you favour one of those suitcases that trundles around on little wheels then prepare for a frustrating experience as your luggage jumps and dances across the cobbles. A rucksack is a much more practical option unless you confine your bag-towing to the business district and the five yards between your taxi and your hotel. If you are staying in the Old Town, leave the wheeled case at home.

Taxis - Most of the taxi drivers in Tallinn are decent upright chaps who wouldn't dream of taking advantage of a disoriented tourist. The rest are mercenary fiends who will, if you let them, fleece you for as much as they can get. Taxis in Tallinn can charge whatever they like (no central price control) so here are a few pointers to help you avoid the fiends:

• All taxis have to display their rates, normally on the rear passenger window. If there are no rates displayed, don't get it.
• For daytime travel, you should pay something in the region of 34-55 EEK when the meter starts and around 9 EEK for each kilometre. Disreputable taxi drivers might charge 3-5 times as much.
• Taxis have meters mounted on their dashboards. If you choose a cab without a meter, or if the meter is obscured or if it shows anything more than 55 EEK when you get in, get out again.
• The best place to pick up reputable taxis is the airport, followed by the ranks outside the larger hotels and shopping centres. Taxis waiting at street corners, particularly if they are old Mercedes, are likely to be dodgy.
• Airport to town centre is about EEK 75 - EEK 100 depending on time of day, traffic etc.
• Taxis with company livery or logos tend to be more reputable. Avoid cars that are only labelled "Takso" (Taxi) or that are labelled "Tourist Taxi".

Trams - Tallinn has a network of Soviet-era trams that can, for the adventurous tourist, be a useful form of transport. Tickets (buy them in books of 10 from any roadside kiosk) cost EEK 9 each and are good for a single journey; jump on the tram, punch your ticket and ride for as long as you can stand it.

The trams are slow, noisy, uncomfortable, smelly and hot (a bit like the Northern Line) but they also run fairly regularly and they're very cheap. Worth a go.

Food - Tallinn is awash with restaurants offering everything from African to American "cuisine". The problem is that the food is often not all that good and the service is likely to be lacklustre, at best. That said, there are some really great restaurants with good service in Tallinn, you just need to know where to look. A few hints:

• Bocca - Good Italian food, nice atmosphere, not cheap.
• Pegasus - Not bad but I've only eaten breakfast there. Tends to be better on weekdays.
  
• Controvento - Good Italian food, some atmosphere (not as good as Bocca), moderate.
• African Kitchen - Nice, good atmosphere, helps if you like Antelope or Camel (although they also serve chicken, beef etc.).
  
• Pepper Sack - Dreadful medieval theme restaurant. Avoid, unless you want something to laugh about later.

In general, you should be fairly safe eating out in Tallinn, but avoid anywhere with a menu in Finnish and take care when assuming that you know what you're getting - you should expect some degree of translation inaccuracy as well as cultural differences in common definitions. Be warned!

Shopping - There are three main types of shop in Tallinn:

1. Large Western Shopping Centres - there are several of these dotted around but the one you are most likely to find is Viru Keskus in the business district, just outside the old town. The range of goods on offer is pretty much what you would expect to find in the UK and prices are also broadly similar.
2. Tourist Shops - there are huge numbers of souvenir and antique shops selling an astonishing range of rubbish. Entertaining, but it helps if you like amber.
3. Local Markets - on the edge of the Old Town you will find a number of open air markets where locals buy clothes, bric-a-brac and various other everyday items. Interesting, but you probably will not want to buy anything.

The shopping streets in the Old Town will be fairly familiar to visitors from the UK, although most of the shop names will be new.

General Survival Tips

• Get your Estonian currency from a local ATM rather than at the airport in the UK - you will get a much better rate.
• If you need a hotel, the Swissotel Tallinn is the best in the city and is not extortionately expensive.
  
• Some shops take only Estonian credit cards - check for the normal symbols on the door to avoid embarrassment.
• Tram and train tracks run freely across and alongside roads - take care when crossing because even a slow-moving tram can do a lot of damage to an unwary tourist.
• Spirits are served in measures of 40ml, 60% larger than standard UK shots.
• Wireless internet access is available pretty much everywhere, free of charge.

Windows Mobile

One thing that annoys me about the browser in Windows Mobile (IE) is that it doesn't work with all sites so, for example, I can't login to Blogger while on the move. I'm not sure exactly why this is but it is rather annoying, especially as other Google sites work brilliantly from my phone.

Gatwick and Tallinn

I am at Gatwick again to fly back to Tallinn for another 10 days of fun and partying.

I have one major objective for this trip - to list and prioritise the changes that I need to make before my work here can be said to be done. I can then answer the really important question - how long do I have to keep doing this?