Aberdeen

This week I am in Aberdeen on business. It's a fascinating place: the adverts at the airport (for pipeline inspection equipment and offshore safety training, rather than shampoo and jewelry) leave you in no doubt that this is Oil City.  There is money here: plenty of new cars on the clean streets, attractive shopping malls (which reminded me of malls in Dubai, Malaysia and London) and granite bridges between granite buildings. When you see bridges from one building to another, that's a sure sign of money.

My hotel overlooks the docks. Numerous buildings are marked with the logo of the Shore Porters Society - the world's oldest transport company - advertising its presence here since 1498. The ferry to Orkney and Shetland with its Viking logo is just over the water, and there is a truck on the docks lining up cattle wagons ready to be loaded on board. Elsewhere , the supply vessels from the offshore platforms are here to load up - giant sea trucks that carry everything except people out to the rigs in the North Sea. A constantly changing steel landscape, chugging with diesel engines night and day, bright colours clashing with the grey of the Granite City. Thank Ibis for double glazing.

This is an interesting week to be in Scotland. In a few days' time, the nation will vote about separating from the Union of the United Kingdom.  Anyone who is resident in Scotland can vote. 12% of the population of Scotland are not Scottish, which means half a million people from around the world can vote on the future of a country they know little about, yet 750,000 Scots living in England have no say, and nor do soldiers on tour of duty, nor millions of others worldwide with Scottish blood. I'm not allowed to vote. But my brother, who is of English descent (and was born in Switzerland), can vote because he lives in Edinburgh. I don't understand how that's appropriate for independence.

I also don't understand why so many people are pro-independence . I understand the laudable ideal of independence, but it must be tempered with practicality. Nobody knows what currency will be used, what language they will use ("English" being taught in Scottish schools?),  whether Scotland will be permitted entry into the EU (and how long it will take), whether the border with England will be open or policed. That uncertainty is making the international finance markets uneasy - already, billions of pounds sterling  has been moved out of Scotland, and the London stock market has slumped because of the uncertainty. Even six months ago, the papers were talking about the financial prospects of independence.

I guess it's easy for me - I'm not Scottish, so I don't understand what Scots feel about being part of the Union. Catalonia, the Flemish, Orcadians, and other people-groups around the world probably have a much better idea of what independence means. They must be watching Scotland like hawks for a precedent that will allow them to pursue their own independence.  If they do, then the break-up of the EU may well follow - ironic really, because the Independence campaign seems to rely on Scotland rapidly being integrated into the EU to survive. I can't help thinking that the Scottish First Minister has shot himself, and the country he loves, in the foot.

Mumbai

The first thing that hit me when I landed in Mumbai was the heat. Tired and somewhat red-eyed, once off the airbridge from the plane door, the corridor is occupied by vast air conditioning machines from a bygone era. It isn't clear to me if they are working, because I can feel the humidity. They are building a new airport next door, because the existing one is old and too small. Once out of the airport, the taxi ride was bumpier than the worst turbulence: potholes everywhere, half-built roads, diversions, and a maze that is literally a construction site. twenty minutes later, the roads were still in a terrible state, and I started feeling queasy.

After checking in, and giving my stomach some time to rest, I took a rickshaw to a nearby shopping area. There are a quarter of a million of these little things buzzing around Mumbai like bees - three-wheeler boxes with a lawnmower engine and a cracked windscreen, weaving in  and out of traffic, squeezing between a bus and an enormous truck with "Horn Please" painted on the back. Beep beep - a motorcycle zoom by, a passenger hanging on behind with no helmet on. Pedestrians jaywalk across the road as if the traffic wasn't there. Rickshaws hoot, swerve, brake, dodge, hoot again. Maybe it was pure luck that I didn't see any collisions.

What a contrast to the orderliness of the Netherlands where I was two weeks ago. I didn't see any white lines on the road here: every inch is used, and lane control is unheard of. The pavement looks like soil that was left behind after building the road. Shacks and corrugated iron buildings are everywhere ... apparently these are not the real slums, but quite respectable abodes. Once I saw the rusting frame of a "rickshaw pickup" just abandoned and quietly dying at the side of the road. Their trucks are well decorated with hand-painted signage on the front and sides, and occasionally the windscreen is outlined in tinsel.

As dusk fell, I watched the traffic from the safety of my hotel. The mad beeping traffic continued. Tuk-tuks shot round the queue and pushed in at the last moment. None of the rickshaws seem to have lights, though I saw one with indicators once.

Mumbai and the surrounding area of Maharashtra is a very beautiful place. Unfortunately, most of what I saw was the industrial area. Such are the delights of business travel. I did see some nice bits of the creek from the Airoli bridge from the taxi. One day, I might bravely venture to take a holiday here and see what India is really like ... but I might have to get used to the heat.

Milton Keynes

Have you ever tried to get out of Milton Keynes? It's bad enough trying to find anything in the vast sprawling Metropolis. I start to get lost after the 4th identical roundabout. A paper map is useless, and I praise God in heaven for the people  who invented the Sat-Nav. I can now find my destination in Milton Keynes, thanks to the American voice on my dashboard. Then I make the mistake of switching off the gadgets for the way home. "It's easy enough", I tell myself foolishly: just follow the signs for the M1. This is usually late at night, when I am tired and I want to get home.

There is a roundabout off the A5 where the M1 motorway is clearly signposted from the dual carriageway. But when you get up onto the roundabout, there is no indication which exit you need to take off the roundabout. No blue square on any sign. Just village names that you've never heard of. I know because I went all the way around twice last night trying to find it. In the end I got back onto the A5 and went a different way.

If you go "through" Milton Keynes, there are plenty of signs at every roundabout for the M1, and it helpfully suggests different routes for southbound and northbound traffic. But there is one crucial roundabout, probably close enough that you can see the motorway, where the signs to the M1 are missing. You are destined to remain in Milton Keynes forever.

There are only two places where I need a Sat-Nav. I can navigate just about anywhere else by looking at the map beforehand (usually online nowadays) and spending 15 minutes planning my route. My wife boasts that I can drive all the way across Germany and remember how to get to her sister's place without looking at a map. But even with a map I cannot find my way around Milton Keynes. A friend of mine who grew up in nearby Bedford explained that it is because new roundabouts are being born and old roundabouts die all the time, and the road layout is different every time you go there. The confusion is exacerbated by hundreds of identical roads, identical housing estates, identical roundabouts, and even similar place names. The day that the sat-nav was invented should be celebrated by anyone who needs to drive into, or more importantly out of, Milton Keynes. The only other place I need a Sat-Nav is inside Ikea.

I would love to know if people who live in Milton Keynes also get lost in their home town. How did you find your way in the days before satellite-guidance? Is it any easier by bike or on foot, or do you just take the bus?  I did eventually work my way out of your town, but I never found the motorway.

20 March 2013

Magdeburg

Magdeburg is a wonderful place to visit. It is easy to get to (90 minutes' drive West from Berlin, and it's on the main railway line) but do not go in February. There are plenty of things to see and do in Magdeburg, but mid-February is the wrong time of year to do it. We had a family birthday celebration there, but we really should go again at a better time of year. At this time of year, an icy wind blows straight off the Baltic, or Siberia or somewhere else not listed in holiday catalogues, bringing with it a temperature of -8 C. (or 18 F).

We stayed in the small town of Wolmirstedt, just outside Magdeburg. It has a railway station, a car-free shopping street, and a few hotels and restaurants. It's the kind of place where most people know each other. The hotels knew about our party, because they were all fully booked. The taxi company knew about our party because they had something to do.


There are some pretty amazing things to do and see in this area. One of them is the Water Bridge, the world's longest navigable aqueduct, which crosses the river Elbe. They completed this in 2003. During the separation of Germany, canal boats from West Germany to Berlin had a 12km detour from the Mittelland canal, down through some locks and a ship hoist (also pretty amazing), along the river Elbe, then back up the locks to the Elbe-Havel-Kanal. Most of Berlin's coal came in that way. We parked near the aqueduct and walk up to the canal level, which is 16m higher than the water level of the river Elbe. At the top we were greeted by the aforementioned Baltic wind, which cut right through us. We braved it for only a few minutes before descending into the shelter of the banks again. It's quite bizarre seeing boats on a canal so high up above the surrounding dead-flat land.

Apart from our party (we do some fairly awesome family parties) we also ventured into the centre of Magdeburg. Again, this would probably be really interesting during the summer. The tall buildings and straight streets shelter you from the wind one moment, then when you go round the corner, the wind funnels right at you. We lasted 2 hours in the cold before seeking shelter in a shopping centre. But in that time we did see the "Green Citadel" building, the last building designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. It's supposed to be green because of the grass on the roof, which of course was white with snow. Nevertheless it is a stunning building, curiously positioned between traditional and other "modern" buildings, and manages to avoid straight lines in a Dr Seuss way, whilst still remaining practical.


Like all good short breaks, the long weekend was over too quickly. We drove back to Berlin (despite snow on the Autobahn, we made good progress), and struggled through the chaos that is the woefully inadequate Schönefeld airport: There is one restaurant (burger King) and one pub, serving several dozen gates, and water costs twice as much as it does on the plane! But we had a fab weekend that the kids will remember for a long time. We must go back in the summer.

A trip to France

In a week when France was in the international papers for all the wrong reasons, and a million French people took to the streets in the most dramatic protests for two generations, I had a business trip to a small town in Bourgogne, about an hour North of Lyon. By Monday afternoon I had just finished booking the last details for my journey, when I received an email from BA to say that my flight had been cancelled. A moment of panic. Call my boss. He tells me to panic. And to call the customer. They advise that I fly to Geneva, only 2 hours away by car, and there should be no problems from there. They recommended that I do not attempt to go via Paris, and most certainly don't try traveling by TGV.

An hour and £650 later, my new flight is booked - for the following day - along with car hire. Within 24 hours I am on my way. Nice to see the inside of Heathrow Terminal 5 - large, airy, and nothing to do except shopping. Do I really need to get myself that iPod just now? How about blowing every penny I've ever earned on a watch? My flight is delayed ...

It turns out that the flights to Geneva are delayed because the French Air Traffic Controllers wanted a bit of strike action too. Anything that would have flown through French airspace therefore has to go the long way around: East towards Cologne then down the Rhine, over Basel and back along most of the length of Switzerland. It was strangely comforting to know that Deutsche Bahn were running test trains into St Pancras on the same day, but I was annoyed that I'd missed it.

I know Geneva very well. I spent three years of my childhood here, and have visited regularly ever since. For my rental car I made sure to get something with a large enough tank that I would not need to fill up in France. They offered me a diesel Clio, which did the trick nicely. I still tried to get into it on the wrong side though! Darkness had fallen by the time I hit the Autoroute A40, which was a great shame because the countryside around here is just gobsmacking (search "Nantua" for example). Occasional teasers were visible through the rain, as the road shot round a valley on a concrete viaduct, and the lights of an idyllic village could be seen tucked into the valley. Shame their view has been spoiled by the nice concrete viaduct I was on. Up into the mountains, through endless tunnels, long stretches of steep downhill, escape routes every so often, and warning signs in four languages.

Eventually the terrain flattened out, but it was still dark and still raining. The A40 seemed to go on forever, eventually joining up with the A6, and after a very long bit between junctions, I reached my destination.

The first day of meetings went well. I drove back through the town centre as it was still light, just to get a bit of a view of this town. Nothing particularly remarkable about it, though I later learned it is where photography was invented and it is famous for its fog. The contrast between this sleepy small country town in France, and the riots shown on television was striking (pun intended) - here it seems the biggest impact is that the fuel stations are out of petrol and diesel. Things seem much worse in the big cities.

At the end of the second day of meetings, I managed to get away by 5:30pm, and hit the autoroute. I was determined to get back to those awesome mountains before it got dark, and the Clio didn't dissapoint. The hills of Bourgogne, the occasional traditional French buildings, slowly developed into bigger hills and less houses as I put the kms behind me, and there in the distance some real hills. "Genève" was signposted all the way, which was a great relief. What the autumn grey-browns did to mute the colours of the countryside was more than compensated for by the sunset. It had been a spectacular blue sky day. As the sun set, I started to rise into the mountains. Heavy lorries in the crawler lane, my ears popping as we went up and up and up ... then the terrain opened out on a plain, with further mountains in the distance. A long tunnel, which shot out directly onto the viaduct suspended in the sky against breathtaking cliffs ... the tiny model-like village of Nantua far below. The autoroute continued to curve around the valleys, arch across them in vast concrete ribbons. As we approached the péage before the Swiss border, it was dark. The last part of the darkening sky above a sillhouette of the mountains where I lived as a little boy.

Entering Geneva wasn't quite so romantic. I managed to miss the hotel and shot past the airport. I came off the autoroute, and headed back ... but not quite enough, crossing the border again and nearly went into Ferney Voltaire. I was back in France, and heading back on the Route Departmental towards St Genis Pouilly and Lyon ... back the way I'd come. I knew I needed to go as far as Thoiry then turn back to Geneva. but at Thoiry, I went straight on. Five kms further, I saw a sign I hadn't seen in a very long time, the village where I grew up, so I went to have a look. It was indeed dark by the time I got there. But there was the railway line (much closer than I remembered it), the school, opposite the triangular green by the Mairie, the church, and the road up to where we used to live. The huge gates were shut, and I didn't have the nerve to go and say hi at 8pm. But I stopped a bit further on, got out and chatted to a man walking his dog. He turned out to be an Englishman working at the same place my father did 35 years ago. The farmer was still there next door, no longer milking cows but just sawing wood, and the village hadn't changed as much as some places nearby.

And so back to Geneva, past the border crossing near CERN that I remember so well (some things just don't change). I got lost in roadworks in Meyrin, trying to find the airport again, eventually found my way out of Meyrin, back on the main road, and found the hotel. Once I'd settled in my room I went to find dinner. Disappointed with Holiday Inn : they don't serve dinner here. They recommended the restaurant at Mövenpick Casino next door. Turns out to be (one of) the best Japanese restaurants in the world. I can't spell the thing I ate, but the chef prepared it on a hotplate right in front of me which was most interesting, setting light to half the food in the process. Most entertaining, very tasty, and certainly not the "diner leger" that I'd asked for, but I had no grounds to complain about the food.

In a week in which France has been in the international papers for all the wrong reasons, and Britain has announced austerity measures that will cost half a million people their jobs, I have supported the private and public industries of four countries: a taxi company and an airline in Britain, the German air traffic controllers, a restaurant, a hotel and a car hire branch in Switzerland, a hotel, the autoroute company (through toll charges) and a few cafes in France. Is this what Cameron means by getting private enterprise to drive the recovery, or is it Brown's "Spending your way out of Recession" ?

Seen on the Thames today

A cruise liner was moored up against HMS Belfast on Monday 8th June. Looks like Alexander von Humboldt. There were lots of German families around Tower Bridge buying ice cream.

By 08:30 on Tuesday 9th June, it had already gone (presumably at high tide).

A drop-down list of countries

"Please add a drop-down list with countries so that users can select their country from the list"

A seemingly simple request from a client whose website we were building. They are not a political organisation, but the mere inclusion of a country list turns out to be fraught with Politic and Intrigue.

The first problem is determining where to source your data. Depending on who you ask, there are between 192 and 239 countries in the world. The main official sources are at the same time incomplete and over-complete. Further research into the problem reveals a world tour of politics, frustration and behind each of those are personal tragedies … (but I'll spare you the latter for now).

At the time of writing, there are 192 members of the United Nations. This is not a complete list of countries, for it only includes official member states of the UN, and omits territories that actually exist, such as Taiwan (which the UN believes is a province of China), the territory commonly called Palestine (which has UN “observer status” but isn't a UN member state), and Kosovo (which is recognised by at least 60 UN member states but is not a UN member state).

The International Standards Organization under ISO 3166 lists 246 official country names. It includes both China and Taiwan (as a “province of China”) and “Palestinian Territory, Occupied”, but again omits Kosovo. However it correctly lists many separate countries that are not UN member states, including Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Greenland, and the Færoe Islands.

On the other hand, the ISO-3166 list has separate entries for Cocos Island (population 600), Norfolk Island and Christmas Island (which are not separate countries but territories of Australia), French Guiana, Martinique, Réunion and Guadeloupe (which are actually part of France) and other areas which make no claim to be separate countries. Conversely, it does not list Spanish posessions such as Ceuta, which is an “Autonomous city of Spain”, but is disputed by Morocco.

The ISO-3166 code for The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is “UK”. The United Kingdom is a commonwealth realm (or soverign state) consisting of four countries : England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – but none of these are listed in the ISO-3166 country list even though they are countries.

Wikipedia is a very helpful source of information and is kept up to date: This page helpfully maintains a list of “Soverign states”, and goes into considerable detail about dependant territories, conflicts and disputes. Wikipedia explains the situation regarding Kosovo, Abkhazia, Taiwan, and many other countries, and gives information on the hierarchy of areas such as Great Britain (Great Britain is not a country but an island. Britain refers to the Kingdom of England and the Principality of Wales, but excludes the Kingdom of Scotland. The British situation is particularly well explained).

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority maintains the list of top-level internet domain names (such as .uk, .com and .info). This list is interesting for a number of reasons. It contains the top level country-code .gb as well as .uk (although the former is not used). The country-codes .yu (Yugoslavia) and .su (Soviet Union) still both continue to exist in 2009. There is no entry for Kosovo, England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, but the non-countries of Cocos, Norfolk and Christmas Islands and French Guiana, Martinique, Réunion and Guadeloupe are all included (as are others). The European Union has its own “country code” entry .eu which is politically interesting (the EU is not a country, though some think it is heading that way)

So, is it possible to get a proper list of countries ? In some languages, the distinction between a state and a country is blurred. For example, the Federal Republic of Germany is a “Bund” (federation) divided into Länder – usually translated as “states” but a more correct translation would be “countries”. Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia call themselves “Freistaat” (free state or republic), even though they are not autonomous.

Let us assume therefore that our list of countries will be incomplete or wrong. Why does this matter when the client is based in London and is only aiming at a UK (or more broadly, an English) audience?

London of all places has a very high number of political refugees, dissidents and people who for one reason or another have moved here from their homeland. It is highly likely that one of the countries on (or off) our list will relate to a London resident. Do we insult the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia by omitting their lands, or insult the Georgians by including them? Does one include or exclude Kosovo or Taiwan? What about England or Guadeloupe? The mention of the territory called “Palestine” is especially political, even in apolitical circles.

So to return to the original issue: a box on a form for someone to enter their country. By providing a drop-down box, the website owner is making a political statement (perhaps unwittingly). On most websites that have a drop-down list, I cannot choose “England” any more than I can choose “Yorkshire”. To avoid this political nightmare, I would prefer a text box where users can write anything they like, and I run the risk of having visitors from Elbonia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbonia) and Applesauce Lorraine.