Serious Matters

Normally I tend to write my entries at the end of the day using my laptop in a semi-darkened room whilst watching the television. Some would say that years of attending meetings whilst also reading email have taught me this skill, actually I have come to realise it is a bad habit really. I find as along as I don't think about hitting the keys I can type, but as soon as I stop and think about hitting the "t" key for instance then I hit the "r" key instead.

Whilst coming clean about multi-tasking - if you ring me and I go silent for a little while - it probably means an email has just arrived which has captured my attention - sorry. I'll try to shake that habit.

At the moment I am using my desktop computer which has a much a larger screen than my laptop, allowing me to watch a great TV series being shown on BBC4 in the UK - "The Story of Maths" by Oxford professor Marcus du Sautoy, at the same time as I am doing this post, naturally. Did you know that quadratic equations were one of the greatest legacies of Babylonian mathematics.

So why I am writing my Blog this morning? Just before going to bed last night I caught a brief story on the news concerning a "Border war" between Thailand and Cambodia (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7672641.stm) and last month there were reports on unrest in Bangkok (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7592942.stm). At the moment I am still anticipating the trip going ahead. If you look closely at the reports then they refer to parts of the Thai/Cambodian Border well away from where I will be travelling, but I must admit I am a little bit worried about the trip being cancelled. I am still definitely up for it and there are still three weeks to go for things to calm down. As the organisers (Symbiosis Travel) are based in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia they have an on-the-ground view of the situation so fingers crossed.

On the the recent cycle ride up to King's Lynn I did not take any pictures of the place so here is one taken in February 2006, to give a sense of the town. There are still a small number of fishing boats that moor here - you can see them in the picture if you look closely.

I use Picasa (version 3.0 at the moment) to review my pictures and Adobe Photoshop Elements for serious editing/printing. Picasa is great for for reviewing loads of pictures quickly it is also fascinating to see some of my pictures taken from the same place but at different times of year. It also offers quick editing - in this picture there were a couple of pieces of litter lying on the grass which I removed with about 30sends of editing.