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| Houses of parliament |
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| Haendel House Museum |
The tour in the houses of Parliament is something not to be missed: great to walk around in such familiar spaces and to hear the stories. All the different traditions are great as well. (How the parties in the houses sit opposite each other, red lines they can not cross, green bags for petitions etc.)
Also when walking around in London you cannot notice memorial plaques attached on houses to mark what kind of famous people lived there once upon a time. Charles Dickens, George Orwell, Nancy Mitford and Haendel to name a few.
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| Soane's Museum |
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| Olympia Antique Fair |
We are staying at the Grand Northern Hotel at St. Pancras - a brilliantly new hotel next to the fully -wonderful- renovated St. Pancras / King Cross station. This must be the place in London with the most connections. Almost all underground, railwaylines (Eurostar!) etc. come together at this place.
But next to that the Camden area is very nice to discover as well. Away from your usual tourists places we find all kind of interesting stuff. The actual reason for visiting London, The Olympia Antiques fair, is a big disappointment. Sure you can buy some nice decorative stuff, but there are no real gems to be found. Luckily at the same venue there was the the London International Antiquarian Book Fair - which was great!
This is one of the best libraries of the world - you can wonder over The Magna Carta, Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, countless medieval miniatures and even Beatles memorabilia. Funny fact is that the actual building is like a Iceberg: the larger part of is is under ground.
I switched back to iOS from WP8 today to experience the new iOS7 - and I am not so impressed. I definitely do not like the new design. It is really a bit of a mess, feels old fashioned and sometimes child-like. All that thin-lined icon + transparency stuff won't hold up in the sunlight (no problem in Amsterdam right now...) And especially the iOS 7 home screen icons look ugly,
poorly balanced, and of an unattractive color palate.
Not a step forward. But there are some improvements (which Apple got from Android, HTC, Windows and others). The new control center is great. Airdrop, "your day notification", Safari, automatic app updates(!) etc. are all nice. But the overall feeling is disappointing. Back to WP8 and let's wait for the next release of MicroSoft.
Since 2006 I am working with my Mac Pro and I loved it throughout. Upgradeable, expandable, silent, robust: what more do you want? Well... The NEW Mac Pro!
WOW this is really something else. This cylindrical designed Death Star will definitely get a place ON TOP of my desk and not under neath it. Great specs as well. Not sure yet if I can connect all my current stuff to it though - and a little bit afraid it will be very, very expense...
Well this is probably the Game of 2013: The Last of Us (by Naughty Dog). It looks and feels greats ,o I almost cannot wait till Thursday when it will be released... A whopping 10 out of 10 on IGN.
Well who would have guessed? Kahn is back and after the original Star Trek II ("The Wraith of Kahn") 30 years later he still haunts us (and the USS Enterprise crew). This new episode of ST is really awesome. I like the acting, story art direction and direction. What else do you need?!
Well maybe an exclusive Star Trek outfit which you can buy on Ebay... :-)
While I am still making the switch to Barefoot style running, a new finding at annual meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine in Indianapolis concluded that it probably doesn't make that much difference if whether you land on your heel or forefoot... Dr Gruber presented a research that she did which showed that heel-striking was the more physiologically economical
running form, by a considerable margin. Heel strikers used less oxygen
to run at the same pace as forefoot strikers, and many of the forefoot
strikers used less oxygen — meaning they were more economical — when
they switched form to land first with their heels.... SO WTF?!
Do I have to return to "classic running"?
Dr. Gruber recommends that runners run the way that is most natural and comfortable for them. So I will stick to that for now...
My first Ibiza track (work in progress...)
Underwater Queen Esther Williams died today at a very respectable 91 years old - probably swimming is healthy for you. Her (sometimes outrageous) aqua musicals were a whole new phenomenon back in the 1940's and no wonder she became a huge star. My favorite Esther Williams movie is "Million Dollar Mermaid" directed by Mervyn LeRoy, 1952. In this movie everything comes together and is over the top. Luckily in our video library we have dozens of Esther Williams Titles and I will watch some of those the coming days. Her autobiography (The million dollar mermaid) is worthwhile to read as well. It recalls her extra ordinary live and why she should be an inspiration for all of us.
Now that the summer finally arrived in Amsterdam I am feeling in the mood for some summer music, Ibiza style. So I can listen to my Ibiza playlist on Spotify or... I can make some tracks myself. So that's what I will do!
Because of Eddie's birthday we had dinner at Le Restaurant, the fabulous place of Jan and Kostya (with help from Graham). At least 20 different dishes made an extravaganza of food - which were all superb! Just as the rest of our evening...
I am still a bit of recovering of last Saturdays Stock Aiken Waterman party. It was back in time with all the hits they produced. And there are many. Think of Rick Astley, Mel&Kim, Steps, Bananarama, Dead or Alive, Divine(!), Princess (my favorite), Kylie Minogue, Donna Summer and many more. In the late 80's it seemed that every track they produced scored gold.. (which it did) Here are some on Spotify.
Today was an other edition of the Rock and Run competition. It seems that every years people get more crazy while running this event through the very heart of Amsterdam. The track is nice: running over the channels - but also challenging because you actually can hardly run because of the amount of runners participating. But it was fun anyway :-)
An other Saturday an other track, I was in the mood for making some (old fashion) Deep House - hope you like it too ;-)
The Ghostbuster's Ecto-1, the Dukes of Hazzard's General Lee, the A-Team's GMC Vandura, and Knight Rider's KITT. I really would like to build/have them.
Way back in 2007 Eddie and I went on a trip to al your usual tourist highlights in China. I did some filming, with on of the first solid memory JVC cams, but never got to edit some material of it. So now I finally did. Hmmm... The video quality has improved a lot the last years - even my Nokia Lumia 920 can take better video now a days. But as a memory it is a nice document.
With an all star cast (Matt Damon, Michael Douglas, (spooky!) Rob Lowe, Dan Aykroyd and (an unrecognizable) Debbie Reynolds) and directed by Steven Soderbergh you would expect the Liberace biopic "Behind the Candelabra" an instant winner. But it is not. Based on the autobiographical novel of real-life lover Scott Thorson this is supposed to be a love story between Lee and Scott. But all we see is two guys fighting and having occasional sex. Where is the love?
It seems that even nowadays Hollywood is afraid to show that two guys can actually love each other. Don't get me wrong: Michael Douglas is awesome, the whole set up is that of a campy Hallmark biopic and the art direction (customs!) is terrific. If only...
Maybe better next time to know up front what the tattoo artist will write on your side?
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