More Tudor Pull Photos

If you're looking for the royal barge Gloriana, well she isn't in any of these photos, though you can see her for real if you go to Chelsea Harbour where she is currently moored (or at least was this morning).

 Some good Tudor Pulling here...

The Tudor Pull 2013

Chris of Rowing for Pleasure did warn me the Tudor Pull was coming through Putney and even was good enough to send me the schedule so I'd be ready at 3 pm, that being the predicted time.

Alas their rowing skills, plus no doubt a bit of help with the outgoing current, meant they arrived 10 minutes early and I wasn't quite where I'd planned to be, but still managed to get these snaps.

Gloriana was looking particularly fine in her gold with red coated rowers (above) and there were many admirers watching as she led her little fleet through Putney (below):

Of course most of those watchers also asked "I wonder what that's all about?" and I was tempted to explain all until I realised I forgotten some of the critical historical details, such as what exactly is a Stela, so couldn't.

 Anyway some cracking rowing by all involved including this bunch:

 Curses - was I spotted?

Gloriana on the Thames, again

What was this, spotted on the Thames early Friday morning?

Yup its the royal barge Gloriana.

I heard a rumour that she's to be the guard of honour for Chris and the Langstone Cutters on their Sunday row down to the Tower with a 'Stela' - which apparently isn't a beer.

Though there might be more to it than that, involving pulling Tudors, which sounds like something Henry VIII would do.

Matt Rutherford's talk at the Cruising Association

Yesterday evening I headed down to the Cruising Association in Limehouse Basin to hear Matt Rutherford give a talk about his circumnavigation of the Americas - single handed in a 27' yacht.

And pretty riveting it was too - and funny. Matt is I guess just into his 30s and has an upbeat what you see is what you get attitude, and I wondered how much his voyage had changed him, maybe calmed him.

It's a long way to sail, though he was pretty nonchalant about it. After making it through the North West Passage, he said, he had to get home somehow to Annapolis and the Panama Canal costs money and he just had $40 on him so he might as well keep going round!

Naturally after last summer's sail to the Arctic Circle I was most interested in the bit between Newfoundland and Alaska and it didn't disappoint.

He too fogs, whales and dolphins as we did and he had no heater either, but then he also had ice bergs, big ones, as large as container ships, walls rearing out of the whiteness.

To make sure he didn't crash into them his watch system was 50 hours on 3 off, 50 hours on 6 off.

Now that is really tough.

But then as he described it, it felt like playing a video game, dodging those growlers, a video game where he had just the one life. He described how time seemed to change, so that 10 hours would pass like 10 minutes, and how his coping strategy was to do everything very slowly, in keeping with his brain and body's speed.

It clearly wasn't much fun when the gales blew through, but there times of calm when he could drift and not worry about a bit of bumping - or indeed running aground as most of the channels up there involve deep water apart from the Simpson Strait.

Then down through the Baring Strait with 20 foot waves and 50 knot winds, across the wide Pacific, at one point closer to New Zealand than Cape Horn, struggling with the doldrums, until finally reaching that most southern point where, surrounded by albatrosses, penguins and rainbows he saw this:

After the Horn he could turn north and face his most severe test yet.

One problem he had was things breaking and he didn't have spares. The water maker required a rendezvous off Newfoundland but when the engine starter motor failed he had to get a new handle delivered off Brazil.

All was going well until he realised he could see the beach, and on the beach were Brazilian girls.

It was tough, but as he pointed out, to achieve something as well as hard work you must also make sacrifices.

So very true, and when he finally sailed back into Chesapeake Bay, crossing his outbound track, it was a really great achievement.

The New Putney River Bus

The Putney River Bus has been running long enough for me to have a chance to use it and very good it was too.

Ok these quick cats weren't made when Queen Victoria was still on the throne, nor where they part of the fleet of little ships that came to the rescue at Dunkirk, but they do the job asked of them, which is to take commuters from the upriver leafy suburbs directly into the center of London.

There were comfy seats, big windows to admire the view, fast rapid ride and you can even use your Oyster PAYG to pay the fare. Unlike the tube or train I had a seat with room to open the laptop and excellent 4G coverage to receive and send emails.

Timetable can be found here.

UFO spotted over London!!

Reports have rocked the capital all day of a mystery UFO high in the sky.

Lingering for literally hours, it was said by the millions to have spotted it to be yellow-white in colour and so bright as to be blinding!

UV Ray Gun?

Scientists observing this phenomena detected high levels of UV radiation from a nuclear fusion reaction - beyond any engineering possible on Earth.

"The Yellow UFO could be dangerous" said a scientist with a beard. "I'd advise wearing protecting clothing when in its direct line of sight."

Aliens Danger

The Daily Mail is very concerned about this new CANCER risk from ALIENS and is asking for Government action. However Number 10 has issued a wait and see statement, while admitting that this Yellow UFO could appear in the skies over London later this summer. The opposition has already slammed this as another example of a do-nothing administration.

Ice Cream Agents

But the twitter-sphere is already speculating about the next visitation of this celestial apparition, and whether the alien agents are already among us. "On days when the Yellow UFO appears, you always see ice cream vans: how do they know? Is there secret communication or are they Yellow UFO agents?"

Watch this space - or rather watch the skies!! (*)



(*) carefully - don't look directly at the Yellow UFO

A guide to Vienna

So there you go, a guide to a long weekend in Vienna.

Start from St. Stephen's Cathedral and explore out to the Ringstrasse, travelling by tram and train.

Visit the Museum of Art History, the Belvedore Palace with its Kilmts and the Schonbunn Palace.

Go for a spin of the famous Ferris wheel (above), eat a classic sachertorte at the Cafe Central and then go to the opera.

Finally, walk across the Danube and find out whether its blue or not.

Vienna shops

I don't know why people travel to go shopping.

Ok there are exceptions (carpets in Turkey, for example), but a task that's dull when done at home is really very, very low on the list of things to do when travelling.

But for those for whom it is important, yes Vienna has shops, like the shoe shop above. Indeed we managed to quickly buy a scarf (actually two) and a tie for the opera.

However you'd be much better in one of the museums or having that sachertorte.

The Danube at Vienna is not blue

There was only the shortest of times to explore the Danube River as it flows through Vienna, but we did walk across it on a pedestrian bridge.

Confusingly there are actually three branches. As well as the "real" Danube, there is also the "New Danube", which follows its partner in parallel, creating in between a park like long island called Donauinsel.

Both are slightly away from the main town, unlike the Danube Canal which is just a short walk down from St. Stephen's Cathedral.

Opera review: Die Fledermaus

Vienna is one of the world's great cities of music. Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler and Schubert to name but a few have all performed and created here, so we had to do something musical.

And what can be more enjoyable and appropriate than going to seeing Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus, a total hoot of an operetta, in its home city of Vienna.

We went to the Volksoper which is a lot easier to get tickets than the Vienna State Opera and probably cheaper too.

It helped that the surtitles were in English but the music, singing and acting would have be enough. The ballroom scene in particular was enormous fun, and there was a great cast of singers and dancers.

Hard to leave without a smile on your face.

Sachertorte at Vienna's Cafe Central

All these trips to art galleries, museums and palaces were interspersed with pit stops at local cafe's and restaurants.

Vienna is especially known for its cakes, and most of all for the Sachertorte (above) - indeed the name comes from the Sacher Hotel and Cafe next to the grand opera:

We had thought of visiting and trying one of their Sachertortes but they were entertaining a Canadian singer of the name of Justin Beaver (Ed. - is that right? pl. check) so we went elsewhere.

And that was absolutely the right thing to do as we ended up in the wonderful Central Cafe, like many an intellectual and writer before:

It was one of those places that feels like home and would have been happy to stay there many days, eating through their cake range and pretending to write away - or even actually write away, spurred on by their equally great coffee.

Vienna Transport

The center of Vienna, that part within the Ringstrasse, is sufficiently small to be walkeable, but if you want to go further, in particular to the Schonbrunn Palace, you're going to need transport.

You could take taxis, and a couple of times we did and they were efficient and friendly, but the public transport is pretty comprehensive and cheap. We got a 72 hour pass that included all trams, trains and underground journeys plus a return ticket on the airport to city train for just 33 Euros.

The underground network might have been smaller than London's but it connected all the main locations. We did take a couple of trips on the trams (above) just for the experience - in particular to do a loop around the Ringstrasse.

There were horse drawn carriages for those that are into those sort of things (below) but we weren't so gave that a miss.

Schonbrunn Palace, Vienna

The Schonbrunn Palace, or Schloss Schonbrunn, is Vienna's most visited tourist site, with 2.6 million traipsing around its endless golden halls each year.

It was certainly felt very, very busy - too crowded to be enjoyable. The first time we went the queues were like rugger scrums and we'd have had to wait 3 hours for the timed entry, so we left.

The second time we arrived earlier and managed to get in reasonably quickly, but it was still packed. It felt a bit like a conveyor belt in an overly gilded rush hour, hemmed in at all sides, deafened by multi-lingual guides trying to be heard by their group over the hubbub.

Despite the obvious luxury and cost of everything I would not want to live in such an environment, and could see why Franz Joseph's wife, Empress Elisabeth, preferred to travel, escaping its claustrophobic halls.

I'm not really into the rococo style, but the great ball room was rather pretty:

The Klimts of Vienna

Vienna was home to many artists, one of whom was the creator of The Kiss (above), namely Klimt.

We saw quite a few Klimts while there, of which The Kiss was probably the most spectacular of those within the museum in the Belvedere Palace (below):

This museum and park is a bit out of the way but definitely worth the walk from Karlsplatz, even on what was a very chilly day with rain or sleet most of the time.

Another home for Klimts was the art nouveau gem of the Secession Building:

Here was a room where all four walls were decorated with Klimt's Beethoven Frieze, an allegorical story of human's travels through woes, battling temptations, to reach joy through the arts (or something like that). It too ends with a kiss.

It being rather cold we decided to end our art tour at this point and go for a warming soup in a nearby cafe.

Vienna's Ferris Wheel

One of the "must dos" in Vienna is to go on the Ferris Wheel (above).

It's had the staring role in a number of films including a rather threatening scene in The Third Man and a much nicer romantic scene in Before Sunrise.

The view from the top is rather good - or at least would have be if it hadn't been a misty and dull early evening:

Then it was a rather rickety way back to ground and time to head off into Vienna for a cocktail followed by dinner:

Vienna's Ringstrasse

As mentioned in the previous post, Vienna's Ringstrasse is home to dozens of imposing 19th Century buildings, such as these.

Above is the Rathaus or Town Hall, while below is the Austrian Parliament Building:

 The Rathaus is full of lovely Gothic features:

 Opposite the Rathaus was the Burgtheater:

Ok, so I mentioned dozens of buildings and here's just three but it was cold that day and sleeting so I went for a coffee rather than take pics of all of them.

Iain Banks (and Iain M Banks) is "very poorly"

Away from Vienna some very bad news from Scotland, which is that one of my favourite authors, Iain Banks (or indeed as one Twitter wit put it, two of my favourite authors, given his "pseudo name" for writing SF is Iain M. Banks) is "very poorly", indeed not expected to survive a year because of the big C.

I was lucky enough to hear Iain talk at the British Library on the subject of Utopia, and fascinating it was too. The Culture series presents a type of techno Utopia and there was more than a little wish fulfillment at having ultra-powerful Minds operating aggressively but on an excellently ethical basis.

Yes, the mainstream fiction was good stuff but its a real blow to know I'll never read a new book describing the adventures of the Interesting Times Gang and all those characterful Ships with the great names their Minds choose for them such as:

• So Much for Subtlety
• Unfortunate Conflict of Evidence
• Gunboat Diplomat
• Just Testing
• Funny, it Worked Last Time
• Ultimate Ship the Second
• I said I've got a big stick
• Don't try this at home
• Pure Big Mad Boat Man (*)
• Mistake Not... (**)
• Beats Working

He also seemed to have the ideal life style, spending the autumn thinking and plotting the next book, winter and spring writing it, and then taking the summer off.

One of the reason's I'd like to be a writer is to be like Iain.

In the great Tapestry of Life, Iain's thread was a good one

Iain [M] Banks, RIP



(*) Says Wikipedia: an inside joke based upon the language of Ned (Scottish) culture. It would be read/heard as "a pure big, mad boat, man" roughly meaning "a very large and deadly serious boat my good man".

(**) short for "Mistake Not My Current State Of Joshing Gentle Peevishness For The Awesome And Terrible Majesty Of The Towering Seas Of Ire That Are Themselves The Milquetoast Shallows Fringing My Vast Oceans Of Wrath", obviously



Updated: while going for the morning run I listened to Pendulum's Immersion, which is the music I associate with Surface Detail, and imagined myself on-board the Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints, barrelling across the galaxy, offing the odd GFCF ship on the way, in its race to destroy the virtual hells. Great stuff.

Updated again: after the sad news of Iain's death

Museum of Art History, Vienna

Heading out from St. Stephen's Cathedral in any direction and you eventually reach the Ringstrasse, the road that loops around the center of Vienna. Along its wide boulevard are many palace like buildings dating from the late 19th Century, such as the Museum of Art History (above).

Like most of its contemporaries it has numerous statues in alcoves and along its roof line, and that's just the start, for inside its an overload of marble, gold, sculptures and paintings, such as this dual staircase (look closely and you'll see some Klimts):

The ceiling is pretty good too:

The guide book says its one of the best museums in Europe, and that must be true: we just had time to look at two wings and only just scratched its surface.

The collection was clearly built by a very, very rich aristocracy, the sort that calls this simply a "salt cellar":

 It also has arguably the best cafe in any museum anywhere:

Worth the entrance fee just to drink coffee there!

St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna

 St. Stephen's Cathedral dominates the center of Vienna.

While there are many, many grand buildings in this city, surprisingly few of them date back more than 150 years, but one of them is this lovely Gothic building. It has the most amazing roof, created by over 230,000 glazed tiles, making a wonderful pattern:

Inside is as intricate and ornate as you'd expect from this exterior, with added atmospheric and aromatic incense:

The roof is pretty good (though of course not quite as good that one in the place that's a bit like heaven):

 Outside the cold stones are warmed but not just plain floodlights but also coloured lights:

There were of course many services for Easter which I ducked out of, though I was impressed by this moving sculpture called Rose Von Jericho in the square outside:

It's a good place to start exploring Vienna, a good landmark to orientate around.

Statue to the artist having a costume malfunction