Geoff’s beta blog

Here I am in France at my apartment in Les Gets 74260. Wanadoo aka Orange have been charging me 24.90 Euro a month for a 1MB connection. However, as you can see there is a missing light on my router modem. Yes that’s right there is no ADSL on the line. Trying to contact their service assistance on 3901 sucks big time even for native French speakers, we are now on our second 72 hour promise of an engineer. I’ve now paid Bernard of Kankoo Informatique in Morzine to try and sort out the Orange guys. However, I’m not hopeful ,they seem even worse than NTL and BT. I wonder how Loic gets on with his ADSL connections.

Picture of actual Netgear router lights.

The missing Internet (ADSL) light.

All a bit terrible for an apartment that you only use occasionally. So off to The Boomerang Hotel Stella again to post this post.

Here is a great piccy of Stan and I. We became friends in infant school at Creswell in 1951. Stan was my protector from all those playground bullies (well he is 6 months older than me which at 60 is nothing but at 5 is like a lot!!). We shared a huge number of experiences together even though our paths diverged when his parents allowed him to do ‘O’ levels and go to university and then he emigrated first class to Australia. Meanwhile I was forbidden to do full time education after 15 (I know its unbelievable now, that your parents would BAN you from doing ‘O’ levels etc etc) and ended up in an ironworks and eventually Cambridge.

Well here we are, celebrating our 60th trip around the sun, in Les Gets still the best of friends.Reminiscing about our illegal chemistry and electronic activities back in Creswell in the late 60’s

Decided to take a break from the iceboarding today and do a little survey of all the estate agents, with high street offices, here in Les Gets (74260) France. I found 10 unique agents in 11 locations. Here are snaps with their phone numbers and website links. Click the agency name or image to access the agents website:-

Orpi Agences 0450796965

ACM immobilier 0450758926

Arch immobilier 0450797428

Immo Progets 045075820

Centrale Des Proprieties 0450797812

Century 21 0450745600

Agence Anthonioz 0450798009

Agence des alpes 0450758518

Century21 0450758320

Agence Holiday 045075814

4807 Immobilier 0450758628

Previously known as Agence Olivier

Feel free to leave comments or names of any other agents operating in Les Gets.

Here is a great photo taken outside my apartment in Les Gets in March 2006. (Thanks Kevin & Louise) Currently the same view is green grass with not a speck of snow. Please don’t laugh, tonight we are promised 1/2 inch of snow at the mid station

However, according to Jean-Michel at The Boomerang hotel we can expect loads of snow next week Many thanks to The Boomerang for providing free WiFi internet here in Les Gets.

Today Stan and I did the Chavannes run, a tribute to the snow cannon and careful piste management by SA Gets we could actually ski into the village. Even Avoriaz is looking a bit dodgy now, especially below 1800metres.

As a little experiment I set myself a little walking route around the back of the apartment on the slopes of Mont Chery and then uploaded it to the GPS. I then tried following the route, with no map, just using the GPS. When I returned I downloaded where I had walked.

The image shows the blue track, my intended route and the red track where I actually walked. As you can see I went wrong 6 times in one hour. Oh dear need to brush up on my GPS techniques

I did a bit of boarding this morning at the back of Avoriaz but got bored after 14 miles in  90mins as it was terribly icy. Here is my route.

The bus fro Les Gets to Ardent takes 30minutes from Mont Chery until you are at the top of the Ardent lift. From tomorrow there is an additional bus at 9.30 the bus at 10.00 this morning was jam packed. 

My star blogging protege Ellee is really riding high. Here are some comments culled from the internet today:-

Paul Newman 43 year old Islington resident and London Conservative Mayor hopeful writes his thoughts and says:-

4 Ellee- I sometimes find Elee a bit alarmingly left wing…well compared to me anyway!! . She does like her environmental issues and is nice to everyone ,which I cannot be. I love her blog though . She is more journalistic in style able to present issues clearly with depth balance and always a pleasure to read. There is a sort of calm and good nature about her that is a welcome change form the over heated atmosphere of virtual shouting .
It seems astonishing that you are not required to pay for her posts which are limpid pools of sense with wonderfully presented supporting information.

and from Jeremy Jacobs we get this collective noun - a lovely of ellee’s

Gazing into my crystal ball I think Ellee is in for a good year, although my other protege, Sally, is doing rather well too.

Looking back from the Nauchets Express into the Ranfoilly bowl. Remmants of artificial snow only. But the lifts are open with the Bruyere run into the village just about open and the Violettes run to the Nauchets still passable.

Looking up the Gazelle black run on Mont Chery - not a spec of snow anywhere. Just forget Mont Chery if you are a skier. walkers and paragliders only.

Well at least Mont Blanc still has some snow - for the time been anyway. View from the Le Belvedere at 1550metres on Mont Chery. My guess is that the snow line is at around 1800metres..

Looking towards the Grand Ourse two man lift, Mont Chery. From the bubble car exit at midway. The green piste is Ourson. The piste basher looking rather forlorn surrounded by slush.

My Sunday afternoon walk up Mont Chery about a 400metre climb and 7km in 1hr 30min with a 30min Vin chaud break at Le Belverdere. I boarded the Chavannes in the morning, that’s it though, Avoriaz from now on.

A gorgeous sunny day today with temperature over 10 degrees.

Les Gets has now organised a free bus direct to Ardent from outside the Mont Chery bubble car. They depart at 08.45, 10.00 and 12.00 returning at 13.15, 15.30 and 16.45 from the bubble car station at Ardent. TC Ardent is very fast so its a much quicker to get to Avoriaz and the Porte de Soleil.

I did 20.3 miles in 2hr 16min with 8mins of stops a top speed of 38.7mph according to the GPS. A great few hours although a great pity that you have to travel on a bus and also pay the high lift pass rates of Avoriaz. I managed to get my pass upgraded to the Port de Soleil area for no more than if I had done it originally so I’m pleased.

Following on from my post when I met Paddy in Les Gets. I now notice from their blog that they  reached Istanbul on October 31st . This is a rough map of his route taken from their pedometer here

Great achievement for both of them.

Continuing my grand 3000 mile E2 walk. I’m now connecting up the bits I’ve walked this year (Pennine Way (250m), Alpine GR5 (350mile), Fen Rivers Way (50m)). So on Wednesday with my new found walking companion, Sally_from Norfolk, we walked from Kings Lynn to Wisbech along The Nene Valley Way.

  A great day, with the excellent start in a charming tiny ferry  across The Ouse owned by a husband and wife team - it is in fact part of the public highway, started in 1200).

Then a walk along the windy sea defences  around The Wash, at times smelly, firstly from Kings Lynn sewage works (come on boys and Burack - clean up your act) then by a team of squaddies doing nefarious activities on the small island off Walkers Marsh who had liberally splashed diesel all over the footpath. Then its straight up The Nene and yes it is straight. Past hamlets with delightful names such as Foul Anchor and into Wisbech.

A good walk, Sally’s first over 20 in a day,in fact 21.9 miles in 6hr 22min walking plus 33min of stops. Here is Sally taking a very short stop on one of the Nene Valley’s stiles. Flattest profile to date as well. Notice the zero bit at the start, when we were on the ferry .

Yesterday CRASSH event was by Vikki Bell discussing Art memory and politics from Buenos Aires and Belfast. She mainly focused on Art and the disappeared ones in Argentina . This was one of the stunning pictures she showed. by Nicolas Guagnini ”In this work, which I have named 30,000 (the number of disappeared in Argentina), I used the picture of my father, a journalist who covered national and international politics. he was disappeared on December 12, 1977. As the spectator moves around the image, my father’s face appears and disappears.” (Picture and words from North Dakota Museum of art).

She also had images from Fernando Traverso “350 bicycles” as apparently the first sign of the disappeared was that their bicycles were abandoned in the streets.He “paints 350 bicycles all over his home city of Rosario, Argentina, one for each person disappeared. He photographs the graffiti bicycles and mounts them in the exhibitions as scenic “postcards.” Very moving indeed. (picture from his site).

She also went into some detail on the role of ESMA (Escuela de Mechanica de la Armada) although what happened within its walls had nothing to do with engineering in the navy (400 out of 5000 survived). Wonderful expression “Taking photo’s is about decisions”  (it was a pun about taking as in clicking and taking as in stealing) also spoke about Carlos Filomina and his umbrella hand and the fact that the junta didn?t get his paintings.

On Monday I went to one of the regular lunchtime talks at CRASSH. totally fascinating discussion and talk by  Margaret Rigaud-Drayton lecturer in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages about Word and Image in Guillaume Apollinaire’s ‘Lettre-Ocean’.

This, apparently, is a fictional letter written to his brother in Mexico. Personally I think it’s a neat way of expressing your opinion without having to endure any more defamation lawsuits. Margaret found many meanings contained in both the language (French, Arabic, ) and the words used (eg chirlMOYa).

  The layout of the text also has many meanings, visually like Paris pointing out to Cuba and Mexico or the opposite Paris being colonised by foreigners (the writer was Polish by birth with an Italian mother) or even in the shape of a women’s pubis, also the waves to symbolize the ocean and distance . Many other asides like Bleriot and the modern abolition of distance with The telegraph and air travel (and now the internet) the visual emptiness of the letter O as a mirror into the soul. All totally fascinating and would love to learn more.

On Sunday I ventured with Caroline into the Nar Valley, we met Ellee at the Ostrich and my new found friends JollyMolly, Sally in Norfolk, Adrian_rtq, The Hound and Millstream from The Ramblers forum for a walk on either side of The Nar from Castle Acre to Narborough.

The profile of the walk from someone whose just finished the Alpine GR5 is interesting. Notice the giddying height reached of over 60metres!

Adrian had his GPS working (OK, I forgot to enable the Track log on mine) and so we have a nice plot of the actual walk.

Actual length walked, including the three little detours was 26.4km / 16.5miles in about 7 hours.

We found ourselves walking 90 degrees out twice, which is about par the course for me. Thank goodness for GPS systems.

Thanks to Ellee I even have a decent piccy of me - just look at that sky, a perfect day, temperatures close to 20 I reckon and a decent OPEN pub at the end Oh, and many thanks to The Hound the best behaved dog I’ve met in a long time.

On the way back we called in at Jeff’s Halloween party with loads of scary kids. Kirsten introduced herself to me as she recognised me from one of Caren’s parties. I wish I had that ability Told her the story about the previous night where I had forgotten the face of the lady who I had started the practice dance with, much to my embarrasement.

First back from Nicks having completed, at last, the installation of his Arke compact staircase and then straight to Cambridge Rugby Union Football Club for the lunch and match against the Bees (Bradford and Bingley) who Cambridge soundly thrashed at 41 -17 an excellent game and also good lunch in the Camstead suite with Philip and his friends from the Judge Institute, especially Maria Fernanda from Argentina.

Jeffery Archer and Rod Bishop admiring the pitch at the start.

Then in the evening it was A Charity Ceilidh at Michaelhouse organised by Melissa from The Cambridge University Press. Excellent fun and well attended, mainly by CUP people and their friends. Thanks Jason for telling me about it.

 On Saturday George and I did the Kentmere Horseshoe in The Lake District. The weather was foul with a couple of very heavy showers and low visibility virtually all the day. Still it was very enjoyable.

  The image  is the memory-map route that we fed into the GPS. For those of you who want to see where we actually walked (:-)) a Google earth file is here for you to download. Unfortunately, as off this post the Google images are not of the highest quality, However, it still gives you a feel of the walk. We did about 1000 metres of ascent in 14 miles. Walking time of 4 hours and total time out of 5 hours.   George was struggling a bit onthe  last ascent but I’m sure it won’t take him long before the boot is on the other foot!

Here is George towards the end of the day when we suddenly saw some bright light in the sky - Yes it was the sun about 5 hours to late!

On Sunday George works on Southport pier so I thought it would be a good excuse to do a bit more of the round Britain barefoot coastal walk. George dropped me off at Crosby so that I could walk the 15miles on the beach back to Southport.  

 I was lucky enough to see some of Antony Gormley’s (Caution: Flash site) “Another Place” sculptures gazing out across the muddy sea. Very eyrie and splendid. The icecream man was raising a petition to prevent their removal in November to the USA. Previously they have been at Cuxhaven in Germany, Stavanger in Norway and De Panne in Belgium. More close up photo’s off the figures on the  Blueshawk website.

The beach became more deserted as you approach Southport and in fact Southport had the muddiest sand complete with embedded  oil on the whole stretch of the walk, coupled with the rain starting up meant the last stretch of the 15mile walk was not the best. Made me realise why  they needed a pier!

However there are great views (weather permitting) across to Wales from the pier.

Great analysis of the youtube phenomeme by Jay Meattle who has posted the graph below. (Thanks to Techmeme and ZDnet for the link). It makes Myspace look really pedestrian. My guess is that Murdoch must be getting a bit rattled. Hence the reason for yesterday scare stories in The Times (also owned by Murdoch) about the  TV Without Frontiers Directive. For what the directive is really about see this page and you can see its that old chesnut “aimed primarily at protecting children” because parents are singularly incapable of doing that as how can you expect oldies to understand technology! The directive also seeks to encourage diversity and basically making it a right that everone in the EU can access the same material (stopping censorship by individual governments).

Today I bit the bullet and finally cleaned up the date book on my Treo 650. I’ve been hotsyncing the calendar data for the past 6 years and had accumulated 25,509 records. I got this dire warning in my HotSync log:- “Some handheld records were not copied to your PC. Your computer may be full or you may have reached the maximum allowed records on the desktop. To correct this situation, delete some records and perform a HotSync operation again.
Desktop = 25509, Handheld = 25508″

The question was how to archive the old records and clean them up. I discovered the Dimex application by LinkeSOFT this takes the Palm .dba file and converts it into a .csv so that all the records can be read by Excel and Google desktop. After cleaning you can re-import the .csv back into a .dba file. The DIMEX application sits in the Palm Desktop under Tools/Addins.

Worked brilliantly well (cost $22 USD), my 25,509 records are now down to 385 for the past year. So HotSync errors should be a thing of the past  and when I do desktop searches Google will pull in calendar data too. Also if I do succumb to the Treo750v (although I’m tempted to wait for the Treo680) I can import all the records into Outlook from the .csv file.

For those of us  who are interested in brickwork bonding and can tell the difference between Flemish and Stretcher bond. Here is a bit of a challenge discovered in Bury St Edmund’s today.

And for all you roadsign buffs here is the first illuminated road sign in the UK put in place in 1935 (by special decree as it didn’t conform to the MOT standards of the day). Note the capitalisation a big no no these days.

Many thanks to Judith for a pleasant couple of hours wandering around her home town of Bury  St Edmund’s.

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An excellent chart produced by Douwe Osinga, of Google Trends fame, where he has taken the age of deaths from everyone mentioned in Wikipedia (’famous people’) and plotted against the year they died. I’ve always speculated that rich people, in the past, never lived much longer than their poorer counterparts ie that medical intervention didn’t really help you. So I need to get the other set of data and plot it as against this one..

Douwe is hoping to show if painters or composers have different death ages.

One of the excellent reasons for living in Cambridge is the diversity of entertainment on offer. Last week for me included:-

Hazel O’Connor at the new Junction4 theatre.

She appeared and sang even though she had a throat infection. I found it moving the way she explained how each of the songs came into being. (She wrote all she sang) from finding close friends blue with drug overdoses to her hairdresser dying. Afterwards we could all have a chat with her. The theatre itself is excellent . Small and intimate, excellent legroom and angle on the seats.

Afro Tema at Cellar Bar 8

Great live African music by the Senegalese Makhou N’Diaye.

Here’s Bruce playing tremendous Sax fantastic band to dance too. Great evening pity that it has to stop at 12am

CHASE talk at Mills & Reeve

Excellent talk given by Eben Upton “an expert in mobile games and content. He was a co-founder of Ideaworks 3d, a well-known developer of mobile games, and CTO until 2001. He has been involved with with teaching as Director of Studies in Computer Science at St John’s College, and with local startups, including PodFun, a developer of mobile game titles. He is currently with Broadcom.

Eben will be discussing episodic content on mobiles, and more”

Walk to Downham Market by Simply Social

I led a group of six ladies from Ely to Downham Market, about 19 miles. Continuing where we left off on the previous Cambridge to Ely walk. Next will be Downham Market to Kings Lynn. hus completing the Gen Rivers Way

A great day fine weather, endless chatter a change from the silence of my GR5 walk Pity about the miserable landlady in Littleport and the pub at Denver Sluice who insisted they were closed even though everyone was still drinking.

So a small selection of one week’s events in Cambridge!

Here is a search on my name using the new idea of Google’s called searchmash It seems pretty awesome to me ranking me in the top 3 positions :-). However, as always the image searches are very poor. I have never worked out how they select images or when they last indexed them. So well done googleplex but please beef up your image search stuff.

Thanks to techmeme and zdnet for the link.

Here is Ellee on her way up in the Conservative blogging community after visiting some of her Conservative blogging friends in London last Friday see her post.

I went along as the minder and taker of the official photo. For me as an attendee at numerous tech blogging events in the past it was a bit strange.

Firstly, well these guys are Conservatives, whereas the previous folks I’ve met at events like Reboot are liberal types. eg Doc Searls and in fact the whole concept of blogging to me is liberal anti big business and media moguls.

Secondly, the deference shown to Iain Dale when he arrived. Never seen that before which was kinda weird. Kind of ‘A’ lister stuff Which Scoble(and Robert your blog sure doesn’t suck!), Winer and the other old timers object so strongly too.

But all in all it was a very good evening and Ellee sure enjoyed herself and come the next election here in the UK I’m sure her ratings will rocket too. Certainly my star blogging pupil by a long long way.

Fascinating story on how bacteria communicate with each other such as Chlorea that only produces toxins when in groups. Maybe it works for people too….

NPR : A Biologist’s Listening Guide to Bacteria: “‘So they turn on and off 100 different genes, to let them turn off behaviors that are good when you’re alone and turn on genes that are good when you are a community. And for reasons we don’t understand, the gene that lets them make this beautiful blue light is one of the genes they turn on,’ Bassler says.”

Popped into Vodafone Cambridge this morning to find they have just taken delivery of the new Treo750V . (Picture is of their dummy phone taken with my Treo650). It will be released this Sunday, 1st October, but they refused to release pricing details.

Looks and feels really sleek, slightly smaller and Nick will especially like the lack of an aerial, although I alwys found it handy for tugging the phone out of your pocket.

It presents me with a real dilemma as in some ways the windows OS might be better, especially since most digital maps used with GPS are only available for Windows It might also integrate better with Outlook etc).

However, Eatwatch and OnlyMe only run on Palm and I suspect lots of the other nifty apps, dictionaries, Metromaps etc may not be available on Windows. It also uses mini SD cards so My Tom Tom software will be obsolete unless I can do an exchange somehow.

Just received my replacement Treo650 for the one I smashed (see the cute bulge) when I fell over catching the bus in Nice (Please don’t laugh having walked 350 miles over rough terrain - couldn’t hack a walk to the bus!).

Will be interesting to see what I do….

Here’s Fiona McLean doing her bit for the worlds biggest coffee morning here in Cambridge. Free coffee is provided by The CSL group with Macmillan nurses collecting if you want to make a donation.

Whilst wandering around Nice I was enticed intothe Papeterie Rontani shop by the IGN map poster. Came out with the brand new FFRP (www.ffrandonnee.fr) 15th edition of the Topoguide to GR20 Á travers la montagne corse. A quick nip down to the harbour confirms that in mid June (about earliest that snow should be gone) there are 5 sailings a week to Calvi (www.riviera-ports.com or www.corsicaferries.com ) that take about 3 hours.
It seems like a 15day hike with a first day out of Calenzana been a 1295metre climb.
Anyone want to join me

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

Made it the Med at 6pm and threw my stick in. Must say the Nice people keep it well hidden took ages wandering the streets, thank goodness for GPS. Now for a beer and somewhere to stay.
Fly home Wed arrive midday..
Cheers to all

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

The weather is not at all nice on my Nice day. Its been raining cats and dogs with the odd roll of thunder and flash of lightening since I left Utelle 3.5 hours ago with most of the track converted into a watercourse

Currently I am holed up in a Rapido cafe in Levens with a cheese sandwich, still over 6 hours of walking before i get to see and feel the sea.
My RAB event jacket must have a leak as I get a little river down the inside of each arm. Otherwise as dry as can be expected. Maybe it will brighten up soon……..

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

Interesting 8 hour day covering the 16 miles and just under 3000ft of elevation in around 6 hours of walking.
Spent most of the day with my head (and body) in thick cloud with visibility only at 5 metres or so, great for vertigo sufferers as most of morning was walking along a ridge.
I met by first party of VTT (mountain bikers) also in the morning, fortunately on their way up. One of my little fears is meeting up with them when they are bombing down.
At Les Granges it turned into a lovely forest stroll complete with mushroom pickers.
Imagine my surprise on turning a corner to be confronted with Bréche du Brec an impressive lump of limestone with a 500ft climb along ledges with those vertical drops I so hate. The path twists and turns across flimsy bridges etc eventually dropping 2200ft into Utelle. Utelle had a full blown street party complete with accordion and choir happening. Eventually I found someone who took me to the Gíte’s guardian to extract the key. However, no food tonight I weasled a baguette and fromage from the bar but it looks like the grand opening of the sardine tin later.
Tomorrow is about 2000ft of climbing and then toes in the med

Changed my flight so that will be in Stansted on Wed lunchtime.

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

Yesterday was another long day, 23miles with over 5500ft of ascent due to me being told that one refuge was closed and the other full.

I started with another piste, going up the hard way, to Col du Blainon then a lovely descent to Roya (whose gíte apparently has the best chef on the GR5) it then turned into a hard slog upto the Col de Crousette where you then have to continue climbing upto Stele Valette at 2590m (the last time over 2000m!), couldnt see The Med as it was to hazy, after which a further 5 hours of walking bought me to Roure, where Karen had booked me into the delightful Auberge Le Robur (003393020357) which literally clings to the hillside overlooking the 2000ft drop to St. Saveur- sur-Tinée. The chef rustled up a masterpiece veggie meal for me. A good ending to a hard day.

Today was lets take it easy day with a mere 10miles and ‘only’ 2600 feet of ascent mainly on tracks with several bar stops on the way.

Only two more days left now tomorrow should be Utelle and the then its Nice on Monday. Each day having around 2000 feet of ascent.

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

My grand tour of Alpine ski resorts continues with a stay tonight in Auron 1600.
Yesterday was an epic day of 7.5 hours walking in a day out on the road of 10.5hours. I covered 21 miles with ascents totalling 6200ft or so. Chris, I did arrive knackered at 7.15 but actually very exhilarated too. Standing alone on the Pas de La Cavale (8763ft) surrounded by 1500ft feet drops on both sides and the most incredible views, total silence and failing light was magical in the extreme. It was my lucky day as well, the guardian at Bousiéyas was serving veggie food, even though the refuge guide said no food was available. I was contemplating having to break into my sardines!
Peter, not sure wether it was brave or foolhardy. Never contemplated any experience as bravery, I guess it was a word missing from the West St. Vocabulary but in hindsight it was a good decision and lets face it probably safer than nipping over Hills Road to the Co-Op. (btw great news about the new hip walking 14miles in a dayand no more Docs for 4years.)

Todays walk from Bousiéyas to Auron via St. Etienne-de-Tinée was epic for a different reason. Its the first time I walked back on my self after going wrong and restarting the trip!
I covered about 15miles with 3500ft of ascent in totally glorious conditions. I just want to stay wandering these southern alps. The flatlands of Cambridge are going to be really hard - 1000ft climbs are mere pimples now.

Todays thought for the day was why the Alps I’m crossing are made of such rubbish materials?. My Creswellian days of walking on pit tips and slag heaps is the best training for over here. Not a decent bit of millstone grit or granite in sight. Its all crumbly shale and small rocks. Which is why the path keeps on disappearing into landslips - which adds to the scare factor if you happen to be day dreaming I bet this is the first time The Alps have been compared to pit tips - Interestingly it also contrasts mans puny efforts to the forces involved in pushing up a few hundred miles of shale to heights of a couple of miles or so.

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

I settled on the pression grande and fromage baguette (notice how my French is galloping on) and decided to press on through the Lauzanier valley rather than the bottle of red wine.
My excuse is there where no pretty girls about. Hold on who is that coming towards me? You could have been right Michael they are heading towards the village…..

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

Arrived in Larche recreated in 1944 after the village was dynamited by the retreating forces. Now who is against the EU? Personally I don’t understand the anti EU brigade at all! If it means that we can live peacefully without frontiers (and it is VERY noticeable all the abandoned frontier posts, castles etc along the GR5) then I’m all for the EU. Here’s hoping that the EU does expand to fill the whole of Europe without any borders or controls on population movement. Remember passports were only invented in the last 100 to 200 years.

The really big questionhowever is . It is now 1.45pm, by the new church clock (yes the church was flattened to) and according to the guide its 6.5 hours to Bousiéyas (and yes I have checked the Refuge is open!) Continue or not? Its the most glorious walking day….

David S sorry I didnt include you previously past emails are all on my blog www.geoffjones.com/blogger.html

Anthony will try your instructions although I suspect Ibrofen etc are 98% due to the placebo effect anyway.

Jacqui and George thanks for your nags its good to know that the Bleaklow day with Fred still resonates with George and to think we ‘only’ did 15 miles and 2500ft in our youth.

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

The perfect day, the day you only dream about, walking across landscapes that Doc Searls gets to photo out of aeroplane windows. Incredible weather blue skys low 20’s doesnt get any better than this.

Great 3500ft climb first through forests then around the vivid turquoise Lac Sainte-Anne in blissful silence (even the Marmots were quite today) followed by a zig zag ascent to Col Giradin (where my pet hornet - who buzzes me whenever I stop proceeded to buzz me). The way down was total scary, I’m really going to miss these adrelanin rushes, back in Cambridge, ( no nanny state here - you live or die by each footfall) on virtually vetical descents on soft shale.

Eventually through the village of La Barge ( a real old original dilapidated french hamlet in the Ubaye valley) then over the Pont du Chatelet - google it - the most amazing bridge with a 107 metre vertical dropinto the gorge and only 2 foot high side walls with nice gaps at each end for the kids to disappear through!

The gite in Fouillouze www.gitelesgranges.com is an interesting old building, beautifully restored and adorned with potted plants. Looking forward to dinner as the dining room has a vaulted ceiling. It took ages to get the guardian to understand my pronuciation of vegetarian :-(.

Whilst walking now I can smell the gorgeous scents from all the wild herbs etc also the bushes are more prickly.

Will be on the final FFRP guide tomorrow and the GPS is showing only 70 or so miles left..

Flight booked for next Thursday from Niceat 10am (thanks Nick) so I can be at Ems first sixth form parents evening. Will try and arrange an evening out in Cambridge on Friday at The Pig.
Cheers

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

I (or more precisely the hotel owner) arranged for a taxi to pick me up at 8.30 and to drop me up off at Cháteau Queyras to resume my perambulations on the GR5.

My left knee still had twinges of pain so I breakfasted on Nurofen super strength pills and vowed to take it easy and stick to the track!

The cheese mountain (Col Fromage) starts of steep but is well marked and soon turns into a nice easy ascent of just over 3000ft the knee behaved itself and the weather was kind too (although I must get another hat if it starts getting sunny - lost the last one somewhere). Looking back across the valley I could see the full extent of yesterdays disasters - I must have been mad. Check out Googleearth to see the crags and slopes i was trying to turn into a shortcut!

The Cheese Col has a false top so I thought I was on my way down when I met a party of walkers, on their way up. They recgonised me from last night at the hotel (they were doing bits of the GR58 which apparently takes in 8 countries of the Alps from Slovenia to France see www.via-alpina.org) they dutifully informed me the Col was still to come!

I made it to Ceillac in fine form at 1.15pm AND DECIDED to stay .

I’m now a couple of days ahead of myself so hopefully will get a flight a week on Thursday 28 Sept. and be back in time for the CRUFC lunch on Saturday and maybe a drink at The Pig on Friday night.

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

This was a very long day. I ended up walking over 23 miles and 4000ft of ascent in over 10 hours out on the trail.

Started off with the descent into Briançon making me thankful I hadnt attempted it the previous night as it took nearly 2 hours and i guess it would have taken ages to find a hotel. Its quite a fascinating place with heavy fortifications and impressive citadels perched high on the mountains. I stocked up with cheese, fruit, bread and the essential mars bars at Shopi, who dont seem to be doing free plastic bags anymore.

Proceeded to make the mistake of trying to walk up the Ayes gorge along a path which petered out to nothing, once I had scrambled around a couple of car wrecks I reliazed there must be a road up there! Crawled up the mossy gorge side to find the track was more of a racetrack for proud dads and there kids in 4×4s on their way to Chalets des Ayes (so many I thought it must be a town). At 4pm I eventually arrived at Brunissard where I should have stayed! But I continued on to Cháteau Queyras compounding my stupidty by trying to contour around the mountain through thick woods and the most horrendous scree slope ever (a good thousand feet drop - and perfectly smooth). My left knee then decided it was time to pack up….

I arrived at Queyras at 6.30pm to find a ghost village. Eventually I discovered a returning family who told me the nearest hotel was at Aiguilles. The look of horror on my face when I was told it was over 10km away, must have won the day as she offered to drive me there. So full marks to Sophies mum and the Hotel Bellevue for saving the day….

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

This was a very long day. I ended up walking over 23 miles and 4000ft of ascent in over 10 hours out on the trail.

Started off with the descent into Briançon making me thankful I hadnt attempted it the previous night as it took nearly 2 hours and i guess it would have taken ages to find a hotel. Its quite a fascinating place with heavy fortifications and impressive citadels perched high on the mountains.
I stocked up with cheese, fruit, bread and the essential mars bars. At Shopi who dont seem to be doing free plastic bags anymore.

Proceeded to make the mistake of trying to walk up the Ayes gorge along a path which petered out to nothing, once i had scrambled around a couple of car wrecks I reliazed there must be a road up there! Crawled up the mossy gorge side to find the track was more of a racetrack for proud dads and there kids in 4×4s on their way to Chalets des Ayes (so many I thought it must be a town). At 4pm I eventually arrived at Brunissard where I should have stayed! But I continued on to Cháteau Queyras compounding my stupidty by trying to contour around the mountain through thick woods and the most horrendous scree slope ever (a good thousand feet drop - and perfectly smooth). My left knee then decided it was time to pack up….

I arrived at Queyras at 6.30pm to find a ghost village. Eventually I discovered a returning family who told me the nearest hotel was at Aiguilles. The look of horror on my face when she said it was over 10km away, must have won the day as she offered to drive me there. So full marks to Sophies mum and the Hotel Bellevue for saving the day.

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650 on 07971428715

Chris left me an email in his usual very positive tone reminding me that we had only one day of rain on the PW.

So I left Modane yesterday to find that my head quickly becoming enveloped in thick cloud and dampness. However, arriving at Col de la Vallée Étroite at 8000ft I was confronted by horizontal rain like out of a Hollywood B movie. Two hours later and much thunder and lightening I arrived, like the proverbial drowned rat at the refuge. The kit held up well although the martini by the hot log stove cheered me more.

Today it was more of the same although for some reason it was more siling it down (siling is what happens when water goes through a colinder) I arrived at Plampinet at 11.30 which seemed much to early to stop, even in pouring rain. So I ascended another 3500 feet to Col de la Lauze, past a truly scary looking shepherd (only person I saw out today) to find the sun starting to peep through. Which cheered me up no end.

I pounded down to Montgenérve but in my haste and love of pistes I came down not only in the wrong town but in the wrong country! Arriving at Chaviéres in Italy. So I had to ascend, somewhat crestfallen, the N94 for half an hour or so. To reach, yet another French ski resort, Montgenévre.

So in 14 days away i’ve covered 213miles or about 57% of the total. According to Martin Collins book today should have taken 10.5 hours but in fact took me only 8.5 hours. I’ feeling incredibly fit probably as fit as I was in the sixties when George and I went walking with Fred Heardman on Bleaklow.

So Nice is looking closer all the time and the sunset tonight indicates probably good weather tomorrow.

Ellee I’m pleased that Ian Dale ranks your blog so highly. I’m sure come the next election you will be hitting the mainstream news with www.elleeseymour.com

Many thanks for all the emails amd texts all very much appreciated.

By the way all these emails appear on my blog at www.geoffjones.com/blogger.html where you can comment etc.
Cheers and love
Geoff
and Em I WILL be home before end of month. Xxxxxxxxxx

Sent from Geoff’s Treo650

Today the weather broke and I walked in rain all day to Modane , 17 miles in less than 6 hours with only one stop. The going was easy on the GR5E with only about 500ft or so of climbs all day from Lanslevillard.

I kept reasonably dry, the Scarpa boots kept my feet really dry (obviously made the right choice, especially since they are George & Jacqui’s favourites too) The RAB Bergen jacket ‘Dry Inside’ tm. Didnt quite live up to its hype with both arms getting wet and the pocket contents (goodbye FFRP guide) getting soaked. I wouldnt count today as extreme either, being valley and forest walking.

The trip yesterday from Val D’Isére to the highest point on the GR5, Col D’Iséran at 9068ft was excellent (a 3200ft climb) I took the easy GR5E route from Bonneval-Sur-Arc down to Lanslevillard (great for cyclists, Phillip).

Body holding up well, all blisters gone and only a burning right heel, which a splodge of Nurofen max. Strength gel (thanks Pennine Way Chris) seems to have worked. Interestingly I can feel my heart working harder once I get over 2500m so maybe the Inca trail is not for me…

Caren no luck yet, although a couple I met a couple of days ago said I wouldnt stand a chance if I continued to roll two walking days into one!

Peter, pleased the new hip is working well. I remember Middleton well from the Pennine Way 6 months ago.

Tomorrow its back to the hard core GR5 with a 4500ft climb out of Modane followed by a 2500ft drop to the refuge, no more hotels for a while…

Think I’m about half way now. 175 miles in 11 walking days, so the 22 days on the sign near La Chappele seems feasible.
Cheers and love
Geoff
and for Emily (if you are getting these missives) xxxxxxxxxxx

Made it to Val D’Isére today on my 9th walking day from St Gingolph on Lake Geneva. The new Scarpa boots I bought in Chamonix en-route are great, my heel blisters caused by the Raichle boots I bought in Cambridge have now disappeared.

The vertical ascents on this route are amazing. My prediction is it will be equivalent to 3 or so Everests by the time I reach Nice. Today it was a straight climb of 3600ft after breakfast followed by another 700ft from Tignes to here.

I’ve now walked about 140miles or around 37% of the journey in 9 walking days. So maybe i will walk it in 22 days as the sign said.

Tonight its deluxe comfort in a REAL hotel (The Hótel Le Relais du Ski -only one open in thus huge resort) with soap and towels, instead of a refuge with their communal dorms and single tepid shower! Question is will I wake up to do the 3200ft climb to the highest point on the GR5 and escape this valley first thing tomorrow.

Interestingly I have now met three sets of folks from Kendal on this trip.

Philip you are welcome to try it on a bike but the fixed ladders on a couple of the rock faces may represent a challenge as would the 2 foot wide ledge for about a mile with a vertical drop of around a thousand feet and dont forget the boulder fields as well

The weather is great with rain and thunderstorms only at night. Lets hope it stays that way.

Many thanks for all your texts it is appreciated especially since I havent seen another walker all day!

Cheers and Love
Geoff
and especially for Emily
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Here is the summary of the first two days walk that I propose starting on Saturday. I intend to follow the GR5 from St. Gingolph on Lake Geneva to Nice.

I’m using , for the first time the memory-map software [Important the Alpes version MMV5/IGN/PE/MB388/CI is faulty call 01189062600  to get a version that has Geneva and St. Gingolph on it]

This enables me to send waypoints (each verical blue line below) to my Garmin Legend. Unfortunately the Garmin can only hack 20 days, so I’m having to merge two days together and at the same time keeping the waypoints below 50. (The Garmin is primitive, computer wise a bit like Palms were 5 years ago!) If only the Treo700 was available in the UK.

The Memory Map software prouces lots of pretties like this below:-

Summary

Route Distance: 30.5 km
Estimated Time: 11:35 Total Ascent: 3654 m
Total Descent: 2091 m

Elevation Profile (St.Gingolph on left, La Chappelle D’Abondance at 15km and Refuge de Chesery at 30.5km.)

Weather wise, I see the zero isotherme in Chamonix is at 2000 -> 2600 m. Which is the elevation of most of the walk.  Although this is promising:-

“High 1025 hpa east of Azores, extending gradually towards Southwestern France. Northwesterly stream over the Northern Alps becoming gradually more stable and dryer. High pressure condition expected to prevail thereafter and at least until the middle of next week.”

Now i must get back to clicking away on my maps.

Here is Em really jubilant at her excellent GCSE results. She managed 7 A* and 4 A’s. I’m a really proud dad today. All of her friends also did well, interestingly her friends who went to Parkside did exactly as well as her friends at The Perse, and apparently  Joe from Parkside received a letter of commendation, been in the top 5 scorers in the country.

The only difference being that, I think, The Perseans did separate sciences .

So now they will all be reunited for the next two years at Hills Road. 

[Here is Craig's blog from Parkside]

Just under a year ago I organised the Our Social World conference here in Cambridge, UK. One of the cool things that Adrian kindly did for us was a river of news feeds that was displayed on the projector. This displayed all mentions of the conference, including all the delegates, and also since we are English the latest Test Match scores.

Today whilst reading Robert Scoble’s blog I noticed he was swooning about the river of news that his big friend and creator of RSS Dave Winer has just released. This is a river of news feed stripped to its bare essentials for displaying feeds from The New York Times and later The BBC on a blackberry or other mobile device.

Since we are in a WEB2.0 world and Adrian was on MSN at 9.30pm I suggested maybe we should knock about with the series of feeds that the BBC has for football (Soccer to the Americans). So by 2am we had created 20 URL’s one for each football team in the premier division. Each URL is the initials of the club plus FC plus river.com so Arsenal is http://afcriver.com nice and short for the mobile phone text entry (although it redirects to afc.newsrivers.com) and West Ham United is http://whufcriver.com Manchester United is http://mufcriver.com Adrian has written a script to display the stuff on your phone like this:-

All rather cool I think. Maybe we could offer a service to other bloggers such as Jeff Jarvis.

For any of you out there who might be struggling, like I was, to locate the instruction book/manual for the MD5909 DECT phone that Aldi sells. It can be found here. In fact the problem was a duff base station that rang with incoming calls but non of the remote phones could answer I know its a bit humiliating to have to declare that I do read instructions some times…

Thanks to Old-faithful Wolf from the MKP for this inspiring quote:-
From the book “The Four Agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz:

1. Be Impeccable With Your Word
Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

3. Don’t Make Assumptions
Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

4. Always Do Your Best
Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

So simple but certainly for me so difficult, especially 3 & 2.

A really excellent idea, outlined here, of how The Washington Post intends to make an improved version of a blogroll by:-

A link to members’ blogs will be featured in our Sponsored Blogroll index, giving your writing promotional space on the washingtonpost.com home page and giving you an introduction to an audience of 8 million readers monthly. At the same time, our hardworking sales reps will help connect your signature musings with the huge number of advertisers we deal with every day who are looking for the next big, slightly-outside-the-mainstream idea.

As a Sponsored Blogroll member, you’ll maintain your independence. But you’ll get additional site traffic, a little buzz and maybe some additional income.

As I say in the comments:-
Sounds a really awesome idea to me. As people who are new to the blogosphere will have a helping hand to decent blogs rather than being put off when they find splogs in random searches. Will be interesting to see how much time they spend weeding the list once they have created it.

So instead of the A list we will now have arguments about how to get on the W list!

Amazing site for the teens and slightly above just look at this river of comments pouring in from its users, in real time. Another Myspace or YouTube in the making.

The site is still privately owned

“Sugar Publishing is a privately-owned media company focused on creating the best online editorial and community for trendsetting, passionate, smart women.”

Its seems true we are all going mad. This BA plane was forced to turn back

“Security teams on the ground advised that the plane could continue safely but after 90 minutes angry passengers complained and the pilot returned to the UK”.

What ever were those passengers thinking off? and what about the poor guy whose phone it is(was) they will be getting a knock from PC Plod quite soon.

Just discovered LibraryThing. Fantastic site that allows you to enter all your books by ISBN number or author and title. First 200 books are free to enter (I’m now at 150) and I would say at least 300 more to go. The really cool thing is that you can generate clouds either by tag, author etc.

This is a tag cloud of my top 50 autors todate. It also generates a widget that you can put on your website that enables anyone to search my library. My widget is on my books page.

Other features let you see how many other users have the same books as you and suggestions based on your current profile.

As always the hardest part is working out what tags to use. Maybe after I have finished reading Ellee’s present “Women Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff” - What categories reveal about the mind. I might be wiser, although it has to be said its a seriously heavyweight book.

As spoken by Britain’s outspoken Ex- Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, Craig Murray:-

“None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane
ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of
the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn’t be a plane bomber for
quite some time.”

To me the whole episode smells and not of Acetone either, given that it all happened within 36hours of Tony leaving the country.

As Craig says about John Reid, Home Secretary “A hardened Stalinist with a long term reputation for personal
violence, at Stirling Univeristy he was the Communist Party’s
“Enforcer”,…..Reid was sent to beat up those who deviated from the Party line”

As Craig ends
- Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical. and I most surely am.

More on it inplausibility here

Windows Live Writer seems to be getting some good reviews. I thought I would do a search for “Temporary Post Used For Style Detection” in Google, As this is a sign that a blogger has been using it. Today it gives 147 entries.

Here is the search window,  I inserted it merely by doing a paste after grabbing the screen with Alt & Print Scrn. Pretty nifty eh.

Looks as if Microsoft is getting its act together especially with news that they are releasing XNA studio express to enable folks to create their own Xbox games.

Where is Scoble on these two new products? not a peep so far, I guess he really has other things on his mind now. Especially when Maryam is doing posts like this one.

Thanks to Techmeme I’ve just learned about this great new tool fr