And I've just looked it up and sure enough, the god of travel is Hermes/Mercury.
So, apart from the really crap night's sleep...
Today's mercurial or hermetic sacrifice was arriving at the Tube station to find a lengthy delay before the next train, which proceeded to not change for several minutes, and then a largely inaudible announcement that ( Read more... )

Unfortunately quite a lot of it was along uninspiring main roads.
I found a paper map (in the back of a promotional magazine for the delights of Sioux Falls) because I was being irked by Google Maps and directions, and it seemed to me that walking to the Great Plains Zoo was doable, which it was, but rather further than I had quite anticipated and ( Read more... )

My paper went well - various complimentary comments.
Other interesting papers.
Interesting/fun/stimulating conversations.
However, got a slight niggle of that thing of being somewhere that I don't quite see my way home from at the reception: tried calling the hotel shuttle as suggested (the conference opening reception being at some place downtown ( Read more... )

In which I discovered that the Van Galder Bus apparently no longer drops off at the Bus/Shuttle Center at O'Hare (in spite of what it said on my ticket) and I was instead put off at Terminal 1. And after trying to make sense of the signage I decided to get a taxi rather than try and locate the shuttles and hang about on a less than clement day ( Read more... )

Though the travel was not unduly arduous: the minicab turned up slightly early and made good time to Heathrow in spite of traffic, slight hiccup at check-in when the self checkin machine wouldn't bring a luggage tag, but this was dealt with fairly expeditiously, going through security was fairly painless.
Flight was slightly delayed, but managed to ( Read more... )

Dept of, did you do any research?
That Uber vs TfL thing, with TfL refusing to renew their license - okay, I do not use Uber (I am probably not their target market) and everything I hear about it makes me deeply suspicious - but when I read various articles claiming that London black cab drivers are the trad white working class, I wonder how often ( Read more... )

Because the train terminated at Birmingham New Street. Though everyone seemed to be in a sufficient worry that they might get carried on that they started surging towards the doors about ten minutes before we actually drew in to the station.
No particular complaints about the Virgin trains, though the loo was a bit pongy, and although I was in the ( Read more... )

Okay, as journeys go that was pretty uneventful and how it was supposed to do - okay, the shuttle to JFK was actually 5-10 minutes early, which is a fault on the right side, I suppose.
Fairly speedily through check-in, baggage drop and security.
The flight was on time.
Expeditiously through passport control and baggage claim.
Gatwick South Terminal ( Read more... )

Yesterday, bound for a conference. Got the train okay.
About a third of the way into the journey, train stops.
Someone had collided with a train further up the line.
In due course we are informed that train will be terminating at a station not previously on the schedule, where we can change to a train going, presumably by some more circuitous route ( Read more... )

What I read
Finished Will Do Magic for Small Change.
Read Sarah Tolmie, The Stone Boatmen (2014): exquisitely written, one could say that narrative was slow and meandering but I think that constitutes a deliberate choice as to where the emphasis falls and what is given importance. Also, subverts certain expectations of the arc of the plot. I ( Read more... )