I've got a new Boston Red Sox baseball cap...

Go Sox!

Are you smarter than a fifth grader?

Fifth graders are 10-11 years old, otherwise know as first years in my embarrassingly out-of-date nomenclature. There's a strangely addictive TV show on Fox at the moment called, as the name of this post suggests, Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Obviously it's a trashy TV quiz show modelled after Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, but what makes it both amusing and literally screamingly annoying is that all the questions are taken from 1st to 5th grade school exam questions - i.e. primary school questions. The subjects are drawn mainly from the usual suspects: science, reading, math (sic), but also specifically U.S. geography and U.S. history. Without jumping to gross conclusions, this hints as to the reason for the general ignorance about the rest of the world exhibited by U.S. citizens. But that's not the point, the point is that I generally end up shouting at the telly (I realise this is a bad sign) when a history teacher answers the question "Which U.S. state was named after a British king?"* with the gem "New York", while his mate in the audience confides "I think it's New Jersey". It's amusing to watch the contestants thinking aloud "A man goes swimming 3 times a week, how many times does he go swimming in 11 weeks? I'm pretty sure I know this, erm (looks around at audience for moral support) yeah I'm sure I know the answer, I think I've got this, erm (clasps hands together nervously), I'm going to kick myself if I get this wrong, yes I'm going to lock my answer in, I'm pretty sure that I think I'm positive the answer is 3 x 11, 33!" And then claps himself along with an ecstatic audience and looks soooo proud. I'm sure that if I went on the show I'd get stumped on an embarrassingly easy physics question, but it doesn't negate the fact that the show is nothing more than an infuriatingly watch-able celebration of mediocrity.

I'm going to make the prediction here and now that this TV show will be illuminating British living rooms before the year is out.

* Just in case anyone got stuck, it's Georgia.

Run Forrest!

The banks of the Charles River are almost entirely man made. On each side lies an esplanade, which would be wonderfully tranquil if it wasn't for Storrow and Memorial Drives, which were dumped, amid widespread opposition, through the middle of them in the 50s.
Despite the fact that they have what are essentially motorways running through them, they present a really pleasant route into town:





Pleasant as long as you don't mind being surrounded by the hordes of 'trotters', roller bladers, skateboarders and bicyclists. Well, if you can't beat 'em join 'em, and we've come to the conclusion that American food is, despite being generally very tasty indeed, bad for the waist line. So, we've started running. From the BU bridge to the Hatch Shell (essentially downtown) it's about four miles. I haven't been able to run there and back yet, and generally have to stop and pant like a pair of bellows while annoyingly fit people breeze on past for their 15th mile. Let's be under no illusions here - I get overtaken by people walking their dogs. Em usually keeps up with me until the Smoot Bridge and then we go at our separate paces until we meet again going in opposite directions. Getting Em to actually leave the house without whinging and complaining about the fact that it's too hot or too cold or there are too many people about or there are the wrong sort of leaves on the path is quite difficult, but once she's going and realised that her legs aren't going to fall off she's generally OK. In fact she's usually very proud of herself when we get back. I'm quite proud of us too - but let's see how long we manage to keep this up, eh?

Wonderland!

There is some wonderful coastal scenery in New England. There are miles of long sandy beaches, small coves, secluded harbours, rugged cliffs further north, lighthouses galore, and of course plenty of the freshest seafood around to go with it. So when the weather turned warm, the second thing that we did (the first being build a barbecue) was pack the towels, don the swimming trunks and head for the surf. The idea was to do it on the cheap, as hiring a car is the best part of a hundred bucks, and in addition ever since she arrived in Boston Em had been keen to head for the stop at the end of the blue line, adjacent to Revere Beach: Wonderland.

Wonderland. The name conjures up images of an old-style fairground with ferris wheels, carousels, candy floss trolleys, and shops packed with sweets - you can see why the idea would appeal to Em, who is to all intents and purposes a big six year old. So off we set with merry hearts: green line to Government Centre, blue line to Wonderland.

Wonderland. It should have rung a bell or two when we realised that we hadn't read about Wonderland and Revere Beach in our travel guides. We should have realised that it was on the end of the blue line. We did realise when we got off and almost tripped over an old sofa that was lying half in a ditch. We realised when we saw the pink concrete, outlandishly shaped tower block eyesores that were clearly the inspiration for the 2012 Olympics logo. We realised when the wind blew sand over the empty road and clattered a shutter against its window. When we saw the graffiti on the uninviting toilet block by the beach. When we avoided the rusty nails and glass lying amongst the rest of the litter on the beach. When the air roared as another jet liner took off from the nearby airport. When we realised the sea was black.

Well, we'd made the journey there so we were going to have a walk on the beach. There were actually quite a few people on there, but curiously none seemed to be speaking English. I don't know whether they, like us, were tourists or whether they lived there. We walked about a mile up the beach and then back along the adjacent road, past the blacked out rides with da beats blaring from within. We couldn't find anywhere that looked half decent to eat so we ended up plumping for a Dunkin' Donuts' ("America runs on dunkin'!") doughnut. This was probably the best experience of the day - and that should put it into some context if you've ever been in a Dunkin'.

Wonderland. With no need to hang around we headed back to the T. It's a shame that it wasn't particularly pleasant, but it turns out that there are public transport methods of getting to the more distant (and much more pleasant) beaches that I'm use we'll find time to make use of this summer. When we got back and told people that we'd been to Revere Beach the expression was usually one of shock, and the exclamation was either "And you've still got all your teeth?" or "Urrgh! Needles in the sand!" And so, boys and girls, the moral of the story is never judge T line station environs by the station name. Except Boston University Central, which is pretty much Central to Boston University.

I can be really stupid sometimes

You would have thought that somebody with a PhD in space plasma physics wouldn't be fick enough to stick their fingers into a plug socket would you? Ah, in that case you don't know Yours Truly. I only have a free bar as my defence council, although a glass makes a poor barrister.

John and I were in Amsterdam airport, having spent three days in Liège. It seemed a ridiculously long way to travel for a two day meeting - hell, it still seems a ridiculously long way to travel for a two day meeting - but in truth it was a very productive one. A group at the Université de Liège is a co-author on our campaign and is independently analysing our images, and we wanted to make sure that we were doing the same thing. After two long days of arguments we finally agreed that we had agreed all along. Que sera sera. If someone were to force me into describing Liège, I would say it is the Belgian Sheffield. I'll leave you to form your own opinions as to whether that is good or bad. I'll just say that the local dish, meatballs, is really tasty, and of course les Belge brew a decent demi-litre.

I like travelling with my boss because he's such a seasoned flier that he gets to patronise those special clubs for special people, where special people get to drink from a special free bar, read special papers and talk boring (but special) business about that big order of screws they've secured from the Germans that's going to make their careers. This free bar was reasonably busy (it was Amsterdam, after all) but I have travelled with John on domestic US flights and sat as near to the free bar bar as possible (i.e. under the tap) watching Yank after Yank pour themselves soda waters. They truly are a strange breed. Anyway, I was talking about special people, well I was clearly having a 'special' day. My laptop battery had decided to bugger up, so I needed a socket. Not having a US-to-Europe adapter, I had to borrow the guv's. This turned out to be bust too, and when I pulled it out of the socket it left one of the pins in. Three guesses for what's coming next. Look, I was jet-lagged to hell and free-bar-G&T-squiffy and thought I was insulated. Well, dur! The look on the special business men's faces when the scruffy physicist in the corner shouted "ARGHH F*CKING B*STARD ARGHH!" must have been, well, special. I was too busy trying to suck my fingers and stop the heart palpitations to care. John was away getting a paper at the time and came back to find me panting. I don't know what he thought about his RA conducting (get it?) a practical experiment in Electricity & Magnetism 101 in the World Club Lounge (Lesson 1: Don't stick yer fingers in the socket, fool), but it can't have been felt with pride.

I also left my laptop on the security X-ray machine belt and had to go back for it when they announced to the entire airport that some doofus had left one. Yep, I had a special day.

And then it got hot

In the space of two weeks in April it went from winter to summer. As a good Englishman, at the first sign of the sun I rushed out to buy a barbecue. Unfortunately, given that the only method I have of transporting one from a shop to my apartment is my arms, I had to buy the smallest one I could find as even relatively light things tend to sting after you've carried them for a mile. In true style I managed to find an impressively cheap and small barbecue - coming in at a total of $6 plus tax. Get in. So we got it back and realised that we didn't have any of the required tools to build it so I had to go searching in the building's gargantuan basement for a screwdriver. It seems that most American houses have huge basements that act as storage space for decades' worth of absolute junk, and ours is no exception. A hunt through the garbage revealed, eventually, a screwdriver and I set to work constructing the grill. It took about an hour (I am really bad at DIY), but lo and behold, a bona fide barbecue began to take shape. Once it was made I took it outside and set it to work on the steps to our apartment. Unfortunately, because it's so cheap and small it only holds a few lumps of charcoal and it took some liberal squirts of the lighter fluid to get it going (actually I gave it a few more squirts than absolutely necessary as it was quite fun in a pyromaniacal kind of way). It also turned out to be so tiny and rickety that it would only support a couple of burgers and a few sausages. Forget steaks. But I was damn proud of it, and felt very manly, having combined DIY, cooking over an open fire and drinking beer in one fell swoop. The camera never lies:


The burgers were horrible, but the sausages and beer were class.

Miracles do happen

Ha ha, so much for promises, eh. In the words of the philosopher A.J. Rimmer, "never apologise, never explain." So I won't, except say that it's all Em's fault. OK, possibly 90% her fault. Oh alright it's all my fault. But what matters now is that I'm back in the hot seat, and as penance for being that worst kind of blogger, lazy, I hereby declare that I will write something on my blog, no matter how small, every day for the next 30 days. Now I know you won't believe me but I feel I need to regain the trust of my erstwhile readership.

Anyway, so what have I been up to that's kept me so darn busy for the last three months? Well, back in snowy March, my parents came to visit. Here is a photo to prove it:


I'll explain about the helicopter in a bit. This was the first trip the parentals had made outside Europe, and I'm pleased to say that Boston didn't disappoint. To be fair, if you come to New England in March you have to prepare yourself for some pretty grim weather, but they only had to put up with the one Nor'easter, and it wasn't even below zero for most of the time.
The Charles River was still frozen, but the ice was on its way out. The Nor'easter happened to coincide with my dad's birthday, for which I'd booked a table at the Top of the Hub. This is a very expensive restaurant at the top of the Prudential tower and generally affords such views as this:


Unfortunately, we battled through freezing blizzards and three-foot drifts to have, well, actually a damn fine meal, but if you check out this photo of the aged parents you'll see that instead of the above view, we had just succeeded in getting ourselves up close and personal with some snow clouds.


As I said, we did have a superb meal - I had probably the best steak I've ever had - and I've chomped on quite a few - but the icing on the cake was the taxi driver who drove us home without any inclination that black ice and compacted snow lying on ungritted roads was going to slow him down or stop him from putting his foot to the floor at green lights. This was also the only meal in which we've ever succumbed to taking a doggy bag home - the twelve cookies that Em ordered for dessert were just too nice to leave.

So here are some more photos from our wintry jaunt around Boston:



(I'm really glad I bought that coat - it was in the sale at the equivalent of Millets - and consists of 2 inch thick armour plated cold-repelling insulation. I have no excuse for the hat.)




(Shh, Em doesn't know I've included that one)



We also hired a car and drove up the Route 2. This road, which is also known as the Mohawk Trail, was once one of the pioneer trails westward of Boston, and is today regarded as one of New England's most scenic drives - especially in the Fall when the forest turns golden. We drove it the day after the Nor'easter, under clear blue skies and with plenty of snow on the ground, and the trail had a distinct beauty that none of them leaf peepers will have seen.







We also went to New York City. Now, as any Bostonian will tell you, this is always a hardship as NYC is overrated and has a rubbish baseball team (the Yankees). We decided to risk it. To get to NYC from Boston the choices are:

Car (driving in New York- urgh)
Plane (hassle and expense)
Train (expensive and takes almost as long as the...)
Bus (takes ages and sometimes doesn't blow up, but cheap at $15 return)

We took the bus. It took 4 1/2 hours to get there, and wasn't helped by the God-awful film about some stupid spelling competition that they showed, but get there we did. The first thing that you notice about New York is the size of it, and the second thing you notice about New York is traffic, of which there is abundance. The third thing that you notice about New York is that most of said traffic comprises of yellow taxi cabs, and the fourth thing that you notice about New York is that the drivers are just as crazy as they are in Boston. The fifth thing that you notice about New York is that they have a rubbish baseball team called the Yankees.

It should be noted that when I say "we went to New York" I really mean "we went to Manhattan", which is, of course, just one of the five boroughs that make up New York City, but it's the most famous one. Manhattan was purchased in 1626 by the Dutch off the native American Canarsie tribe for a criminal amount of beads and trinkets, equal to about $25 in today's brass. It turned out that they were the ones to be duped, however, as Manhattan wasn't the Canarsie's to sell - it was their rivals the Lenape's, who presumably weren't best pleased when they suddenly found New Amsterdam in their back garden. It was named New York by the British when they conquered it in 1664, and recognised that the great city it was to become could only ever be named in honour of the one true centre of civilisation on Planet Earth, York.

The tradition of people arriving on Manhattan and getting duped is clearly still alive and well. If you look anything vaguely like a tourist (group of three or four, walking slowly, general brownian trajectory, heads back and mouths gawping open) you become surrounded by a swarm of people trying to sell you some sort of tour. We plumped for the horse drawn carriage around central park - the bloke told us it would be $40 (while covering up the "$34 for 30 minute tour" sign) and took us for a ten minute tour of the bottom tenth of central park. So it goes. We stayed in a hotel on 77th Street, which is about half way up Manhattan, and did all of the touristy stuff - went up the Empire State Building, went on the open top bus tours, took a boat over to the Statue of Liberty, gawped at Time Square, visited the Guggenheim, took a helicopter flight over the island, you know how it is. Here are the photos:








While we had a great time in New York, we all agreed that it was a great place to visit and then leave for somewhere a bit less 'in yer face', a place with a bit more class and culture, a modest place with a better baseball team. Somewhere like Boston, in fact.

Since then I've been to Liege, Iowa City, Cape Ann, Jupiter and Saturn. I reckon that, since I've set myself the ridiculous task of daily entries, I'd better save some of that for another day.