Foreign Perspectives

Archive for the ‘Society’ Category

One of the things that’s been happening over the last few months is that the paid posting sites are demanding better standards of spelling and grammar from the bloggers and promising penalties if they don’t get them.

Recently, the advertisers have added some text to the effect that the blogger should check their spelling and grammar and that those with bad spelling will be rejected. Fair enough, except that almost all of those demanding better spelling have spelling mistakes in their own advert (and, in one case, in their mandatory link text!) and impose bad grammar through their poorly though out link text.

Perhaps laughably, it’s not uncommon to find that the link specified doesn’t actually work which shows how little care is put into the advertising from some places!

To be honest, with all the security things on these days, I figured that visits to CERN would have been cancelled but apparently not.

In fact, they seem pretty keen on getting people to go. Well, one aspect of that is that CERN costs a whole heap of public money and as with the likes of NASA they’re very keen to show that the money is being well spent.

That would ordinarily be particularly difficult for CERN in that the stuff that they do is very much into seriously technical high energy physics which, let’s face it, is far removed from most peoples’ lives. On the other hand, how could you put a value on the invention of the World Wide Web? The money that’s been generated by that single invention would more than likely repay all the money that’s been invested in CERN from the day it opened.

They go a little overboard on the visits in that they take a half day vs the cursory hour or so in normal places. That in turn means that they can’t have people just dropping in for a visit so if you book one, expect a wait of anything up to six months between your application and when they can show you around.

Oh, and they do show you around too. You get to see at least one of the experimental areas during your visit.

Aside from anything else, one thing that surprises me about this photo is that although I scanned it with a reasonably good scanner for its day, the resolution is much lower than even that of a cheap digital camera these days.

That aside, we’re planning on a trip to Geneva this Friday. As usual, it’ll be “weather permitting” though at the moment the prospects are looking quite good.

You might think that there would be loads to see in Geneva but in reality there isn’t a whole lot. Having said that, what there is, is pretty good in that you get the Red Cross museum, the Olympic museum, etc. courtesy of all the international organisations based there and, of course, there’s the scenery. Oh, and not to forget CERN where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1990 (that link is to the first ever website). Yes, it’s that recent!

Also potentially on the cards is Lausanne which is about 40 mins up the road from Geneva.

We had a really full day in Arles yesterday.

Unlike most of the towns in the area such as Nimes and Avignon, it doesn’t rely entirely on medieval and Roman remains for its attraction as it also has Van Gogh to play with as well. Another big plus point of the town is that all of the attractions are within walking distance so you can cover all the major sites in a day with ease.

If you’re a keen fan of Van Gogh naturally the only place to eat is in the Cafe de la Nuit, isn’t it? It’s still there and decorated in the same colour scheme, but why not eat in the cafe next door and sit just where he was when he painted the other cafe? It’s quite a busy spot at meal times so if you’re planning on doing that, it’s best to get there early.

Within a few hundred yards of that spot you’ll find the Roman arena which is pretty well preserved. A ticket to that includes entrance to the Roman baths.

Sadly you can’t visit Van Gogh’s house as it was destroyed during the second world war. However, it’s now the Hotel Terminus et Van Gogh so you can stay in exactly the same spot as he did.

You need to be pretty organised in packing for a last-minute mini-holiday.

The best plan is to reset the contents of your case shortly after you get home from the previous holiday. That usually amounts to just taking out all the clothing but leaving in all the essentials such as your passport, a few credit cards, driving license, electrical adaptors, and so on.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite so easily done as that if you vary your “holidays” by going on business trips as well as those will generally require a slightly different range of essentials. Likewise, if you constantly go to different countries then things like guidebooks and phrasebooks will, of course, need to be changed.

Still, the principles remain: keep the passport, driving license and at least one credit card in your case and you will probably be able to buy the rest. On the guidebook front, you can keep a very general guidebook in it too eg the Lonely Planet Western Europe guide will cover a vast range of short break holiday destinations.