Finally picked up the new car yesterday. After all the dilly-dallying
with Lagunas and Mondeos, we got an X-Type Estate.

As you'll see from the photos, it does look like a bit of a hearse.

     

Click here to download:

The_new_motor.zip (1410 KB)

However - my view is that I'll spend more time inside driving it,
where it is extraordinarily comfy, than on the outside looking at it.
The other thing is the size of the boot! We'll have difficulty filling
that bad boy.

Of course, I'll now have to put up with the ribbing about driving an
old man's car...made worse by Clarkson and chums recently.

Something other than food this evening. BBC 4 have had a few programmes on tonight featuring Johnny Cash. Watching them reminded me of the incredible honesty and humility of the man, as well as his incredible talent.

It's made me dig out my copies of the last four albums published in his lifetime, the series on American Records, produced by Rik Rubin. All remarkable stuff. Highlights for me are his cover of Bonnie Prince Billy's I See a Darkness and the monumental version of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt, which is below in all it's glory, thanks to YouTube.

     

Click here to download:

More_food.zip (410 KB)

Having left Brighton, my travels then took me up and across to Cardiff, for another Learning Pool event tommorow (Thursday) morning.

I'm stopping in a Travelodge, quite a new one so it isn't too grim. The only thing is that it is part of some out of town leaisure park, from which it is impossible to walk anywhere.

I managed to find a Chiquitos, and had some scran there. Not quite as authentic as last night's fayre.

The leisure park utterly failed to have any kind of shop - unlike the much smaller one in Cambridge which at least has one of those micro- Tescos. This means I am reliant on the Travelodge vending machine for supplies. Meh.

It's on these trips away from home that the simple joys of technology like Skype really kick in. Being able to see my wife while I am nattering to her makes a big difference. Despite being on opposite sides of the UK, the distance doesn't seem quite so far. Other, more simple stuff like sending MMS photos of what we are up to helps so much as well. Little things that make the days go quicker and seem a bit less lonely. I'd struggle without it, I don't know how less nerdy people survive these sorts of trips.

Note the pound coin for scale. For some reason nobody wanted to eat this!

This is the weird curry soup thing I had in the restaurant in Brighton last night. It was delicious, and the wafery stuff was very tasty too.

The rather stylish hotel room I am staying in tonight in Brighton ahead of the Learning Pool event tomorrow morning.

I dropped my MacBook Air last night. Only superficial damage, but annoying nonetheless.

We are looking for a new car, and thought this might be the one we would go for, a Renault Laguna. It isn't, we're going for a Mondeo I think.

Still, this was emailed in from my iPhone. Images seem to work well.

Right, am going to be giving Posterous a proper go now. A space for slightly more personal reflections than appear on DavePress.

This could be spectacularly dull...