The Man with No Time

"There is a curse.  They say: may you live in interesting times."  - Terry Pratchett, Interesting Times  Watching the news, both televisual and online, on Friday morning, the quote above popped into my head. Never has it seemed more appropriate.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the great forest called Braem Wood. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. " A Crown of Swords " marks the halfway point in my journey through the story of " The Wheel of Time ". But it doesn't feel that way at all, either in terms of the story itself, or my enjoyment of it. After brief slowdown with the previous volume (occasioned by my going on holiday for two weeks, without space to takes giant books), I'm back to rattling through roughly 50-75 pages a night. A measure of my enjoyment can be found in the fact that I've re-established a bad reading habit, namely jumping ahead...

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose among brown-thicketed hills in Cairhein. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a  beginning. Book six of the Wheel of Time saga is entitled " Lord of Chaos ". It's an apt title in many ways, as the sheer number of plots and counter-plots, secret machinations, and intrigues that are going in is mind-boggling. In fact by the end of the book the source of some of them is still not entirely clear, and I'm sure that for some of them it will remain that way by the end of the series. There's almost no point to some of the things that go on, other than to cause havoc, which they certainly do.

So I found myself in Brussels over the weekend. Strange I know, but there was a reason for it, honest! Yesterday the project that employs me, the eta-Earth project, was having it's review meeting at the European Research Executive Agency in Brussels. As they pay me my boss thought that I should go along, and since I've never been to the city I decided that I'd spend the weekend there as well. It was fun, if slightly different to what I expected. Left: the central square by night, when it really comes alive. Right: the city hall, which is a fabulous building. (Credit: David Brown)

The weekend just gone saw me travelling to a different country. - well, technically anyway. I was in Belfast with a couple of others visiting one of my best friends, Hannah, who moved there in September to start her degree in medicine. I've been to Belfast only once before. Four years ago I went there for a PhD interview, and despite being very busy I did get a bit of a tour of the place from one of the members of staff. Returning was an interesting experience; I got to see parts of the city that I missed out on the last time around, and see the many changes that have happened since that first trip. Samson. Or Goliath. One of the two cranes that was part of the main shipyard in Belfast. The two of them are actually listed structures! (Credit: David Brown)