Edinburgh

I was in Dublin for a day for work, but not much to talk about there.
I enjoyed it and need to go again, but apart from one notable moment
(the cafe I walked past had a sign advertising gruel) in the window I
don't have much to say about it.

Edinburgh however was much better. I was there for the long weekend
and spent a lot of time a) climbing the hill and b) doing festival
'stuff'. I saw a heap of shows, of which 2 (which were in the same
venue (out of 150) which was quite coincidental) stand out most. 1 was
The Oxford Gargoyles (.co.uk), who basically did vocal jazz with no
instruments. Fantastic, and if I'd been sitting in the right spot for
the acoustics I'm sure it would have been even better. The 2nd was
Coffee and Cake. Which was stand up comedy improvisation with singing.
Just funny stuff (particularly the puppets), one liners and short
skits, of which my favourite was 'if I was Prime Minister for the day,
I'd launch a parliamentary inquiry into how I became Prime Minister
for day'. That type of humour. Luckily I've been living here in
England to get the jokes, as most wouldn't make sense unless you knew
a bit about English companies. And their catch phrases.

All in all, Edinburgh is now my second favourite place I've been to.
Barcelona was still better, but only just. If I'd had someone to
wander around with and see some shows, then Edinburgh would definitely
be top. It was in the middle of the fringe festival, so that had a lot
to do with it, but it's a very pretty city (town actually as it
doesn't have a cathedral) and I'm just about to put some photos up
that I hope do it justice. I did end up hanging out with a pretty cool
Canadian couple, who I met on a pub crawl. Incidentally, the leader of
the group is from Warrington, which proves just what a small world it
is. And the underground tour was scary. Hearing about ghosts in the
comfort of your own home isn't that scary, in a 300 year old brick
vault with no lights is.

We've had a new person start at work, so I'm back to teaching someone
else how to do support so I can do more programming. The previous
person didn't work out, so it's good to get away from the support
again. This one is good, so as long as we get paid on time (hasn't
happened yet) I can't see there being any problems this week. Anyway,
I think that's all that is new and worth repeating. Photos will be up
shortly...not sure how long it will take as I haven't uploaded
anything lately, so I may need to do a lot. Luckily it's the end of
the month so it doesn't matter how much bandwidth I use :)