Our technical adviser takes a rest

Basil Charles, the family Lab, and technical adviser on the Somes Sound family boat, takes a rest.
In background some Douglas Fir planks and the bigger plank is Batu, out of which I'm making the Transom.

"The case for naturalism"

Please see the wonderful Sean Carrol here.  And make sure you click onto the YouTube vid!

Hong Kong International Art Show

I just wanted to put some of these online and say that I was at the first of these shows in 2008 and found this one much bigger and better.  I thought there was much to admire and little to scorn.  All very professional, nothing undergraduate.  I was most taken by the Chinese stuff.  I found that the international community felt the same.  Eg, there's a New York Times article here, which says much the same. "It's much bigger and of very high quality", says one in the article. I agree.  It was really quite something and better than many a museum I've been to in Europe and even the US...

Old friends: Hua Yin and Nicole Schoeni, of Schoeni Galleries Hong Kong
Mother and daughter!

Stunning installation.

By Hong Bin, at the International Art Fair in HK which finished yesterday.

The building jig for a Somes Sound

This is the jig - still half-built, as held up by rain - on which I'm building a little Somes Sound picnic boat. The detail is here: mywoodboat.blogspot.com

PS: the painting is Yang Shaoming.

At the Hong Kong International Art Show

Me with Nicole Schoeni and her Mum Hua Yin of Schoeni Gallery. Have known them for many years since we first bought a painting from Nicole's dad, Manfred, in 2002: he was murdered in the Philippines in still unexplained circumstances. Nicole took over his galleries.
The show was fantastic. Much bigger and better than the first five years ago. Much to admire and little to scorn. All very professional, nothing undergrad.

Jing: 2:30 am on Mt Rinjani volcano in Indonesia

Camping just before going to the Rinjani summit at 2.30am

My guide for Rinjani (From Jing)

Rinjani in the background

There it is, the money shot!

Like for her last Volcano walk, this one is like the Wikipedia shot. The Rinjani caldera.

Rinjani photos

Jing's sms comments to me below. I've chosen a couple of the photos for posting via iPhone. I'll get to editing later. P.
Jing's SMS:
Sending in order of the village where the trek starts, then on the way to Rinjani, then the Rinjani summit, then sunrise, coming down to the volcano lake through steep hills of rocks, then went up again half way for 2.5 hours hard climbing before returning to the village via 4 hours hike through beautiful greenery ...

Rinjani Caldera

Near dawn yesterday. From Jing's iPhone to me Posted from my iPhone. P.

Approaching Mt Rinjani Volcano

This is from Jing and I'm sending via my iPhone to see how it works... P.

Jing climbing another volcano!

Jing is climbing this volcano today: Mt Rinjani, 3,726 metres in Indonesia.
I'll post her photos when she sends them.  This is from Wikipedia.

Some Photes

Another in the exciting series "Hedges of Hong Kong".  Note the sharp edge of this one
achieved with the Aussie-bought cordless hedge trimmer.  For Anne, who is considering mixed hedge.

Arlene holding up the cordless chainsaw that Mutti brought up to Hong Kong: risking profiling as a terrorist
as a result.... This is the Michaela tree, which has grown rather more than we thought.

Shot of Kowloon from the Central-DB Ferry.  The globe is a hot air ballon-type thing that you can tourist up

First day this season at the pool of Club Siena a couple of days ago.  Visibility 9km

Ditto above. Tall building on left is 108-storey International Commercial Centre.  On right 88-storey IFC2

A couple more piccies of Bromo

The earlier photos of the volcano are here.  A couple more from Jing's iPhone.  Great camera, that iPhone!

Hindu Temple in the clouds.  Note some of the hikers in the foreground

Sunset over the caldera

Bromo is the one in the foreground. The one at back is puffing out..
Don't know its name, must ask Jing...

Jing climbs Mt Bromo Volcano in Indonesia

Last week Jing went to Indonesia to climb Mt Bromo a 2,400 metre still-active volcano.  She was with a group of people, 20-odd, a kind of volcano-climbing club, from round the region mainly Indonesia and Singapore.
She took some piccies with her iPhone, and they're stunning; well done, Jing!
Some of them look pretty scary to me: check out the first one, looking down the throat of the active caldera. Jing said it was indeed scary, and felt like one slip of the foot and whooops....
She's heading off to another Indonesian volcano with the same crowd, next week: this one 3,750 metres. She says it's a bit addictive, so she's becoming, what, a "volcano whisperer"?

Wanna slip down here.  As Amy Winehouse would say: "no, no, no...."

The diaphanous waterfall 

The Chinese call this "Sea Cloud"

"It's steeper than it looks", says Jing.  Looks plenty steep to me...

At the top of Bromo ridge

Knife-edge walking.  Not for me: I get High Anxiety

This is similar to the photo in the Wikipedia entry. Bromo is the large one
in the foreground.  The one at rear is also active, not sure its name

The volcano whisperer on the top ridge

UPDATE: A couple more photos above this post, here.

Cooking the books

These competitions in The Spectator are fun and the latest one, "Cooking the books" is a hoot.  I think Anne, in particular, will like some of the "recipes"... I love the D.H. Lawrence Boef Chatterley and the Nabokov Apple Crumble.
The task was: "submit a recipe as it might have been written by an author of your choice."
Sorry about the images being a bit wonky.  They're not yet online, so I had to scan them.  Click on one, and enlarge and then ditto the second one....

Test video upload: Coldplay concert

Later: Mutti, you probably can't read this on your iPad... I can't on mine. That'd be because of iPads not reading "Flash", which Steve Jobs didn't like.... So you can only see on a computer.
This is a test upload of a video from iMovie.  It's John and Jing just before the start of the Coldplay concert last year in Hong Kong. (note: this is not embed from YouTube, but from my hard disk..).
Looks ok, I think I'll leave it. Now I know I can take video with the iPhone and post it, may do some more....
P.