Friday Smirk

 The boys pointing out that what's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander..

New Continents - Part 4

 

On our last day in Santiago we explored the city, one stop I particularly enjoyed was the Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, housed in an 1805 building it featured exhibits of indigenous art and craft from pre-Columbian times, i.e. before America was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus. I knew very little about the native groups in South America prior to European colonisation, about the only culture I'd ever read about or seen on TV was the Aztecs but they only occupied the North of the continent with just a small foothold in what is now Chile. There were many and varies cultures that evolved on the continent and this museum attempted to cover most of them, in some detail, many stories and artefacts from ancient times were presented and the whole experience left me feeling like I knew practically zero about the history of the place, it was an eye-opener!

Some example pre-Columbian artefacts, they somehow reminded me of Japanese Samurai figures.

Modern Chilean art was mainly on display on the sides of the buildings in the form of street art and much like Valparaiso there were some splendid exampled in Santiago, the picture below shows an example of this from the Bellavista district.

On our last evening in the city we had dinner at a restaurant a friend had recommended to me, called "Bocanariz" it's more or less a wine bar that serves food but more fine dining than steak and chips. The wine list was epic and exclusively Chilean wines (which was fine by me!) and the food was unusual and delicious, I snapped a picture of the starters for our table of four, those little Cornish Pasties in the middle are called Empanadas and you can find them all over South America, these were of particularly good quality.

I had a rather unusual dish, essentially a Conger Eel and Clam stew, the eel tasted much like a firm cod fillet but the overall taste was very much like a more spicy version of fish soup, v. tasty! (see below)

Food gods satisfied we headed back to our hotel for an early start the next day, we were off to wine country and back over the mountains to Argentina!

Stinky

 

I tried a new beer from Elusive at the weekend, called "Shibuya" it was a pale ale saturated in Mosaic and Krush hops. Weighing in at a sensible 4.5% this beer was absolutely stinking (in a good way) Mosaic hops tend to be quite fragrant and this was a perfect example of the craft, dank blueberries and citrus for days, so flavoursome and so easy to drink, another winner for Andy Parker and crew!

New Continents - Part 3

 

Day two in Santiago, I snapped this picture just before we headed out for the day on a tour of Valparaiso, which is a port city of historical note on the Pacific Ocean, around 120km from Santiago. The photo shows the "Gran Torre Santiago", the tallest building in South America (as opposed to Latin America, there's a taller one in Mexico) it's 300m tall and was built in 2014, you can see it from pretty much everywhere in the city. The construction is particularly ambitious since, being on the Pacific "ring of fire", means that  Chile is very prone to earthquakes, the last one in Santiago was a 3.9 magnitude quake in October 2025 and they get around 50+ events every year here! You can also see some of the bigger mountains surrounding the city in this shot.

In the photo above is Valparaiso port and bay, the city was founded in 1536 by Spanish explorers and later in 1578 was attacked by Francis Drake in his ship the Golden Hind, however the city grew to prominence in the 19th century as sailing ships stopped here after rounding South America via the Straights of Magellan and Cape Horn. The golden era of the city came around the 1850's when supplies were needed by ships heading up to the California gold rush, it became a major sea port at this time and many people from all over Europe came to make their fortunes. This can be seen in the architecture of the place, it's a mix of new and old like most cities but some of the old buildings look like they could have been lifted directly from Paris, London, Bavaria or even Florence.

In the photo above is a monument to the Heroes of Iquique, an important naval battle between the forces of Chile and Peru in 1879, below the monument is a crypt that contains the remains of senior figures who died in the battles. Note the very "French" looking Government building behind the monument, this is typical of the city, such a mixture of building styles, so far from their origins. During it's golden era the city was known as "Little San Francisco", I can understand why as it sprawls out over several steep hills that lead down to the coast and the port. Like San Francisco the city suffers from earth quakes, being near the Peru-Chile Trench it is vulnerable, a big quake struck in 1906, estimated at 8.2 it killed over 3000 people and the city had to be substantially re-built. 

The golden era of the city came to a crashing end in 1914 when the Panama canal opened, ships no longer needed to risk the long and dangerous rounding of "the Horn" and trade in the port declined sharply and wealthy trading families left for Santiago and richer pickings. By the early 1990s much of the unique heritage had been lost and many people had given up on the city however, in the mid-90s a grassroots preservation movement blossomed and communities of artists took up residence in the run-down labyrinth of cobbled streets.

The city is well known now as a haven for street artists, musicians and writers the walls of most of the buildings are covered in art, much of it very high quality and political in nature (featuring Elon Musk and Donald Trump). These artists use these walls as advertisements for their work, many have gone on to be commissioned to do larger or more prestigious works in cities around the world. I've stitched together a few examples to illustrate this, see below.

We stopped for lunch in Valparaiso and went to a local restaurant suggested by our guide, it was amazing, a panoramic view of the city and bay with beautifully presented food, excellent wine and so, so cheap! We had three courses and drinks for around £20 a head, I had a really tasty fresh ceviche (we were by the seaside after all!) with avocado (see below)

On the way back from the coast we had to drive through the Casablanca Valley, this is a well known wine growing region and so we couldn't resist stopping off for a little afternoon wine tasting (our guide was driving!) We visited a producer called "Re" who specialised in fermenting  their wines in large concrete foudres rather than stainless steel tanks, there were some interesting blends on offer, both red and white. Having worked our way through a flight of wines and having walked around 10k in Valparaiso everyone was keen for a little knap in the van, it took an hour or so to get back to Santiago, just in time for a shower and change of clothes then out for a few beers at Honest Mike's (renamed by us to "Magic Mike's") then dinner!

Our last day in Santiago loomed, we wanted to explore the city, do a few select museums and then dine at a recommend restaurant that specialised in Chilean wines, it was another jam-packed day, more in the next part.

New Continents - Part 2

 

Our first leg of the tour was to Chile and the capital city of that country, Santiago. The flight across Argentina and the Andes mountains from Buenos Aires took just over two hours and the whole thing was done with the seat belt sign illuminated! Apparently this is in the top handful of most "turbulent" flights in the world, although we were lucky and didn't really experience a single serious bump! Anyway, it was a crystal clear day and the views of the mountains were spectacular, I was fortunate enough to have a window seat, it was slightly disconcerting as some of those peaks seemed to be level to or even above the altitude of the aircraft! (see below)

In this shot you can see the famous "Aconcagua" peak (in the background) it's the highest mountain on the American continent and entire Western and Southern Hemispheres, at 7000 metres it's a beast of a hill! Around three people a year die climbing this mountain and I heard from someone who has climbed it that when she did it there was a dead body visible on the trail up to the summit, serious stuff! 

Luckily our passage of the Andes was uneventful and we landed in Santiago in the early afternoon, greeted by blue skies and bright sunshine. After picking up our luggage we made our way to our hotel in the Lastarria district, not the posh part of town, but one with a good reputation for bars and restaurants being close to the main University. Check in done we unpacked our bags and headed straight out to explore our new neighbourhood!

Santiago is in a bowl, surrounded by mountains, on the edge of our district is a park with an old Spanish fort on a hill. We climbed the hill and this is the view from the top (above), the taller of the peaks were behind me but even in Summer there's still plenty of snow on top of them.

Of course I couldn't come this far across the world without seeking out some local brews and we lucked out finding a rather unlikely named bar called "El Honesto Mike" just around the corner from our accommodation. We were slightly skeptical at first but this little bar turned out to be a diamond in the rough, the beers were varied and spectacularly good, as tasty as you could find in any European city! I opted for a pint of "Micro Dosis" a session pale made by the "Hasta Pronto Brewing Co" in Santiago with American hops, all the tropical fruits and depth of flavour you could want and delightfully chilled in the searing Southern Hemisphere heat. 

Our first day in the city had been a success, flights on time, no lost bags a clean and tidy hotel and great local craft beer! After a tasty (and incredibly cheap) meal in a local restaurant and a couple of beers we turned in for an early night, we had a busy schedule the next day and an early start!

New Continents - Part 1

 

Over the last couple of weeks my Wife and I have been in South America, it's been a long planned trip that we started work on earlier this year and we were very excited when our departure date finally arrived. So, at the start of November we made our way to Heathrow T5 for our 17 hour flight to Buenos Aires via Rio de Janeiro. 

I've been lucky in my life and have visited most places, Europe, North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania, South America was conspicuous by it's total absence from my postcard wall, i.e. neither of us had ever been there before and so all of the places and countries that we planned to visit were completely unknown entities to us! 

The photo above could be anywhere really, but is our first glimpse of the place, somewhere in Brasil early in the morning after flying all night across the Atlantic and just prior to landing at Rio. Our stop in Rio was only 90 minutes or so, most passengers got off there and a few got on, the last leg to BA took around 3 hours and by midday we were landing at EZE airport in Argentina. As we took off from Rio I snapped the picture below, it's the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches featured in several iconic songs over the years, our itinerary didn't include Rio but as we remarked at the time, a good reason to return one day!

We were staying in the Palermo district of BA, and as we learned it's somewhat trendy and upcoming, kind of like Shoreditch in London, a bit scruffy but where all the good bars and hip restaurants are.

I even managed to find a little craft beer joint on the same street as our hotel, more of a hole in the wall than a bar but they served up a delicious APA (American Pale Ale) (see above) that tasted fab after nearly a day and a half of travelling. The prospects for the trip looked good and we met up with a couple of mates who were travelling with us but had come out the day before. We only had one night in BA before heading back to the airport and hopping across the Andes mountains to Chile, however we would be back to BA later, more in the next part.

Gaps

I haven't been posting much over the last couple of weeks, the reason is that we've been away again, somewhere far-far away and much of it pretty much off-grid! Anyway, I will be posting about the trip over the coming days, it ticked off (the bucket list) a brand new continent and several new countries for me and was a blast! (locational clue in the picture above)

Friday Smirk

The lad's playing tennis without a net again...

Friday Smirk

The lads pointing out the concept of Occam's razor, sometimes the simplest answer is the correct one. When asked by a Theist why an Atheist doesn't kill or rape as many people as they like (i.e. if there's no retribution in some afterlife) my response would be that we do exactly that, and the number we prefer is zero. 

Gotham 4

We visited a museum called the "New York Historic" while over there last week, never been there before and really enjoyed it, an eclectic mix of cultural stuff including an exhibition of Tiffany lampshades, more dragonflies that you can shake a stick at, very beautiful!

We also dropped into the MOMA or the Museum of Modern Art, as you can see in the picture above it was a load of old Pollocks..

Gotham 3

Finding beers from producers such as Trillium (Boston) is, of course, much easier in NYC than it is at home, here I'm quaffing a can of "Melcher Street" from the aforementioned brewer and delicious it was too! Reminded me of our visit to that city back in 2022 when we visited their brilliant taproom in Seaport a couple of times for supper and beers.

We also revisited the "Highline" this trip and browsed around the Hudson Yards area in the afternoon sunshine. In the picture above is the stunning "Vessel" sculpture designed by British artist Thomas Heatherwick, it looked fantastic glinting in the sunlight, an impressive "thing"..

Gotham ales

A delicious pint of hazy pale ale from NYC brewers "Other Half", sampled at their new taproom in Midtown New York at the Rockefeller Centre. We visited a couple of taprooms while in the city last week, notable ones were Other Half (great beer!), Bronx Brewery (Hudson Yard) and "Strong Rope" down in Red Hook (Brooklyn) which had the most fabulous view across the bay to the statue of liberty (see picture below).. the beer was pretty good to!

After a quick pint in the Strong Rope taproom we decamped to the Red Hook Tavern for some dinner, I had their famous burger (best in the city by all accounts) It was epic, I've had many burgers in my life but this one may well be the best so far, so flavoursome and not over "stacked" like many today, a perfect evening..

Gotham 2

Snapped this while in NYC last week, it's the building at 1 Liberty Street where I used to work in the early 2000's it was right next to the World Trade Centre and was severely damaged on 9/11, after that we moved up to Midtown (the smell downtown was intolerable) It was good to see the old place again, and, although we've been before (2018) we also had another look around the memorial that's on the spot where the twin towers were (see video below)

Gotham 1

Just spent a glorious week in NYC, really lucky with the weather although it felt like it's just turning over there, anyway right up until Thursday the Sun was still out and blue skies the norm. The picture above was taken from Central Park looking back toward 59th - 57th streets, this view never gets old the architecture (while not everyone's cup of tea) is so striking.

Cracking Limes

A new beer from Verdant, tried last weekend it's a pale ale made with Motueka, Citra, and Simcoe hops and their legendary house yeast strain. It's a banger, classic Verdant murk, creamy and soft with flavours of pineapple, mango and citrus (think limes) a cracking beer!

Friday Smirk

The lads chewing the fat about the Riyadh comedy festival, seems obvious to me that some places are a few centuries behind others when it comes to the nuances of human wellbeing..

Happy Birthday to ya...

So yesterday was my Wife's birthday and although we don't normally imbibe during the week we decided to crack open a bottle of bubbles and celebrate the occasion properly. I had this bottle knocking around undrunk since last Christmas and since it was a Grand Cru I thought it appropriate. We weren't disappointed a lovely dry, creamy and bready champagne and so smooth with it, excellent stuff!

Midweek Mirth

Retirement is wonderful but I don't understand everyone else's obsession with what we do all day..

Party Time

 

My Wife celebrates a significant birthday this week so at the weekend we threw a huge party for all our family and friends in a private room at a pub in town. The evening was a great success, the drinks and music flowed and everyone had great fun. I snapped this picture of the birthday cake before we told anyone it was ready to consume, lucky I did, it was polished off faster than a reform supporter blames immigrants for a shortage of cake!

Brandbulb

Had one of these last night, it's a famous beer by my go to brewery Verdant, called "Lightbulb" it's an extra pale ale seasoned with Simcoe and Centennial hops, bright, zesty and dank AF a cracking beer and now in a brand new can design!

Cry me a river

Had one of these last night, it's a collaboration between Cornish brewers Verdant and French brewers Prizm (Montpellier) Apparent the name comes from a river that flows near to their brewery in the South of France, coincidentally one of my mates has a holiday home in a village in the Pyrenees called "Lez" where that very same river has it's source. Small world. PS the beer is delicious, classic Verdant murk with a ton of Nelson giving it a pleasing white wine and lime vibe, tres bon indeed! 

Friday Smirk

The boys discussing one of the reasons (most) Islamic dogma is incompatible with modern Western values.

Thought for Thursday

I often try this one when my kids are feeling anxious, as so many young people seem to these days, it doesn't work of course because our minds are not separate from "us", perception is reality unless you can grasp this thought fully (which is very difficult without a ton of life-experience). However, if there was one philosophy that might help people most today I'd certainly put in a vote for Stoicism, Marcus was a smart bloke and way, way ahead of his time.

Midweek Mirth

Well, my first week as head of security at the Louvre was terribly exciting...

Cloud 8 and a half

 

So there was an outage (kinda) of the AWS platform yesterday that effectively nobbled a load of business and social systems (like the Inland Revenue and Snapchat) that host their software on that platform. Apparently it was a DNS problem (isn't it always) and although most of the affected applications were ok and still running on the servers in Virginia however the rest of the internet couldn't find them as the traffic signposts (which is what DNS effectively is) disappeared for a time. It's probably going to take a while for things to get back to normal as DNS entries are cached (for performance) in all kinds of places including on your own laptop and usually aren't refreshed for a day or so.

I'm not a huge fan of such systems, or rather the way the market has evolved and how that market for hosting platforms has been more or less sewn up by three big US tech firms, Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (AZURE) and Google (GCP) Cloud platforms are very clever, hugely scalable but not particularly cheap and have some serious downsides IMO, the main ones being,

1. It takes a huge investment to move your business systems into one of these "clouds"
2. Once you're on a cloud platform it's devilishly difficult and expensive to move to another one
3. If the cloud you're in goes pop then you're more or less screwed
4. All the major cloud platforms belong to US companies and the US is proving to be more and more an unreliable trading partner.

I really wish Europe (or even the UK) had the wherewithal to create our own (large-scale) cloud platform provider, preferably more than one. This may seem idealistic as the Americans seem to have already won this battle but we do have some significant existing players in this field that could be encouraged ($$) to scale up, but it would require huge investment! 

I am increasingly nervous about the instability of the US (politically and socially) and these platforms are what I would call "critical infrastructure" at this point in time, on the current trajectory the scope for these private companies to be bullied into imposing sanctions (on undesirable competitors or regimes) under political pressure is already pretty big in my estimation and will only increase in the next couple of years, the risk that we will loose more than just our favourite social network for a couple of hours is something worth pondering!

Soanes Obelisk

I was fortunate enough to visit Sir John Soanes museum and country seat in Ealing last year, a fascinating place, and while doing some research on him I discovered that he'd had a commission to design an obelisk in Reading town centre (I blogged about it at the time) Soanes was commissioned to create the monument and it was paid for by a wealthy Reading merchant (Edward Simeon) back in 1804 and is called the "Soane Obelisk" We happened to be walking through that very spot the other day and I snapped this photo..

Reminders

If you know what this is it's a reminder to take your meds for back pain and blood pressure.

Friday Smirk

The boys pointing out how our religious brothers and sisters tend to bend the dogmas of their religions to fit the parochial wishes of men (mainly the scientifically illiterate ones)

Midweek Mirth

Just about every "marketing meeting" I've ever been in...

Autumn Colours II

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas :)

Autumn Colours

Gorgeous yellows and golds among the autumn reeds at a local pond today..

Villages Wedding Suits

We popped into London last Friday to meet up with our Son and buy him a new suit, he's been asked to be best man at his University buddy's wedding this November which is in New York as his friend is marrying an American girl. It was fun doing the whole "fitting" experience and somewhat sobering as being 24 years old everything fitted him perfectly and looked fabulous, now I'm the wrong side of 60 the memory of that feeling is somewhat distant!

Anyway, we also popped into one of our favourite little wine bars. Called "Ten Cases" it's in Endell Street in Covent Garden and does a cracking "steak-frites" in pepper sauce, I ordered a nice Macon Village to go with it and it certainly went down a treat, good acidity, apples and green fruits with a long oaky/creamy finish, a delightful wine, I must look out for it.

Abbey Vibes

Had one of these at the weekend, it's a Belgian style Saison made by Bristol based brewery Lost and Grounded and fermented with an "Abbey Yeast" giving it a banana and clove vibe, it's a tasty beer that grows on you as you sup it.

Stag do's

We took a walk through Windsor great park today and spotted this magnificent stag sitting in the afternoon sun, just chillin!