So Jeremy had his leaving do this evening. End of an era. He’s off to do reflexology and will be sorely missed. Wasn’t really in the mood for the pub, but I’ve known him for years and wanted to say goodbye before he leaves London for good, so mooched along to Jerusalem on Rathbone Place for drinkettes.

He’d brought his PR people along with him, who had duly deposited credit cards behind the bar, which turned a quick stop off into a rather longer stand-and-chat.

Mark had brought along his Tarot cards. I’ve always been dubious of such things, but he explained they were ‘now’ cards - they didn’t predict the future, just gave you advice on your current situation (so no death cards forecasting out-of-control buses on zebra crossings as I make my way home). He got each of us to think if an issue in our lives at the moment and cut the deck. I thought, I concentrated, I cut.

‘Bloody hell,’ he said when he saw my card, and a vision of unavoidable doom flashed before my eyes.
‘Is that bad?’ I asked.
‘Erm, no - it’s just I’ve not read up in the book what that one means yet.’

Hmmm…

Well, it turned out all it meant was that I should look at my surroundings and appreciate what I have. Things are stable and secure, he assured me. Appreciate that and don’t go jumping off in other directions or changing things without first thinking very carefully about what I’m doing or what I’d be giving up.

Nice advice, but very generic.

The cards were pretty, though. Very beautiful drawings on each one. Quite large, quite thick, and an oily swirly design on the back. I’m more interested in these stick figure cards, though. Not so sure about the Hello Kitty deck. Death Hello Kitty on a horse with a scythe doesn’t quite ring true somehow.

Was running so so so late this morning. Something to do with not sleeping last night and then resetting the alarm some time around 2am. The Midnight Weatherman spotted me getting off the tube when I’d finally scraped myself out of bed and into London but the train zipped him away without us getting a chance to chat.

So crawled into the office around 11h and picked up where I’d left off on Friday. Far more progress made than before the weekend, so a good start to the week. Ended up working late to make up for the late start, which was just as well as it meant I was there for Bob’s call. Agreed to do a little insert on cracking into the Clive Bull show this evening. Ended up pre-recording it at 21h15 and spent the rest of the evening flopped in the lounge. Very decadent. It was a calm enough weekend, but for some reason I’m completely wiped out.

Never mind the interest rate - look at the design! Bank of Scotland wins the prize for most desirable credit card so far. Probably one of the only products that couldn’t be product-placed in the films.

More on those extraordinary ads playing on American TV linking the use of larger vehicles (SUVs) to terrorist financing. The ads can now be viewed online at The Detroit Project (unfortunately in RealPlayer). They make shocking claims, but unless you’re prepared to go and read the associated site after viewing them then make no effort to provide any evidence to back them up.

Fair enough, they’re promoting cleaner, less poluting ‘hybrid’ cars, but is spreading hatred, fear and suspicion the best way to do it?

A couple of interesting facts from the site:

• The Energy Department reported last year [that] U.S. cars and light trucks consumed 10 percent of the annual global oil production. (Chicago Sun-Times 3-20-02)

• SUVs consume over 6 miles per gallon more than a family station wagon. No small difference when you consider that an improvement of just 3 mpg in autos nationwide would save 1 million barrels of oil per day. (AH column 11-14-01)
• Among other things, the auto industry has been able to avoid some of the rules simply by making the vehicles bigger. If you make an SUV big enough, it qualifies for lenient air pollution rules, and if you make it really large, like the larger Suburbans or the Hummers or the Ford Excursions, they’re exempt from fuel economy standards entirely. (Salon 10-24-02)

Well, my education in all things Scottish continued yesterday as I picked up David from the train station and drove him to Nicholsons Highland Supplies in Ingatestone. I suppose the fact that people (well, David) are willing to travel all the way from London to shop there explains how it manages to survive in a small village where even the petrol station (and the next closest one down the road) have been boarded up through lack of custom.

A quick inspection of the display cabinets revealed that they had the dreaded musquash sporran which close up, in real life, seems to have whiskers as well as real eyes.

Anyhow, I left him there merrily being measured and fit and sold things and walked to the far end of the high street to buy tea bags. It’s years since I’ve shopped in Ingatestone. Last time was for funeral flowers. Time before that was probably when we still lived there, and I was still at school then. Nothing much has changed. It’s still a village full of community noticeboards selling second-hand prams among the adverts for dances and flower shows.

It took about an hour and a half, all told, to get the full Scot-kit so there was plenty of time for watching the seeming never-ending Billy Connolly travelogues and bagpipe documentaries showing on the little telly in the shop. By then I was starving, so we headed back to mine for a very late lunch, finally getting to eat some time around five, after which I dropped David back at the station to head home for a party. I headed out for videos and yet more mince pies.

Woke up this morning to brilliant sunshine streaming through the window, and the sound of car windscreens being scraped. Perfect conditions for picture taking. So, made a flask of tea and a knocked together breakfasty lunch to take out in the car.

Needn’t have done really, as I ended up staying pretty close to home. I expored some of the back roads around Danbury and spent an hour and a half walking through the frozen woods. The lakes were trapped beneath thick sheets of ice and although I almost lost my shoes a couple of times when I came across some unexpectedly thawed mud the ground was otherwise firm and spiky.

Froze my fingers taking pictures, but some of the icy fungus was too pretty to pass by.

After an hour and a half I couldn’t feel my fingers or feet any more. I’d also been lost for quite a while, so when I found the car I decided it would be best to sit in it for a while drinking tea rather than walking off and getting lost again.

The relative heat of the car turned me all wimpish and I decided to head home with the shots I’d taken and spend the afternoon working on my panoramas rather than setting out again, so came back the long way and then made some more tea.

There then followed a fairly successful afternoon all in all. I have taken the panoramas pretty much as far as I can for the time being, so started work on the information panels that go with them. Completed Munich, which took a couple of hours to design from scratch. (click here to see a low-res PDF). Not so sure about the colours, but they can easily be changed.

Why do we draw maps with the north pole at the top and the south at the bottom? It all comes down to the dominance of the Europeans, according to the upside down map page. Prior to that they used to have east at the top, which is where we get the word orientation (as in Orient - east). Apart from this info, the site has some fantastic pictures of correctly drawn maps, which have south at the top and Europe at the bottom. Very strange.

End of the first full week back since Christmas, and the holiday seems a year ago already. That’s what comes of going back to work at the end of a production schedule and having to work like mad to get the last few pages out to the printer.

I’ve lost track of the week, really, which is probably a good thing. Thursday felt like Tuesday and today felt like… I don’t know. All I do know is I’ve got the next two days off, and loads of plans. Principally these revolve around buying an extractor fan for my water-logged bathroom, and driving David to a Scottish shop in Ingatestone so he can buy a man skirt for Burns night.

Talking to him about the whole Scot thing has opened up a whole new world of terms and phrases (and prices). Quite extortionately sky high. He was on the verge of buying something that looked like a crotch-mounted beaver complete with eyes at one point (or perhaps that was a joke). I see he’s going to have to be closely watched tomorrow - we don’t want anything dead loose in the car.

Three Canadians and fourteen American peace campaigners travelled to Iraq on boxing day, willing to risk their lives to act as a human shield in the hope of staving off an American / British attack. But a twist of fate saw one of them die in a car crash on the roads around Baghdad. As if that wasn’t unfortunate enough, his dead body is now being held up in the restrictions on importing and exporting goods to and from Iraq. Unless an exemption is made he’ll have to go through the same process as anything else being exported form the country. Full story in the National Post.

Yet more Americans jumping to wild conclusions. If you buy a big car then you’re funding terrorists every time you fill up, according to an ad campaign running on American TV at the moment. The full story can be found on this morning’s Media Guardian pages. The reasoning? Simply that much of the world’s oil comes from the Middle East (conveniently forgetting the wells in George W’s home state of Texas, of course).

There are so many things wrong with that campaign. Most obvious is that while its aim is to villify SUV drivers it does more to increase prejudice against the Middle East. And from reports it seems that it does little to answer the question about where the petrol for smaller cars comes from. Surely the same source?

While still wildly off the mark, would it not be at least slightly more accurate to generalise the campaign around the subject of petrol rather than cars of a particular size?

Soho Square looks like a Christmas card. There are two pigeons on my windowledge with little piles of snow on their heads - like coconut haystacks or tiny party hats. I even threw a snowball. A fat, hard, bright white one. It disintegrated into the wall with a satisfying crump.

Today is our second day of snow, and it’s a couple of inches deep where it’s not been disturbed. There’s a snowball fight in the street out front, and I’m very glad of my flasks of soup.

The soup is also filling me up, which is a good thing, as it means I’m not nibbling through the afternoon. It’s helped me come to the conclusion that the route to a successful new year is not to make any resolutions, as I’ve been to the gym every day since being back at work, am not eating rubbish, and feel far better for it.

I’m also thinking about the Russian train trip. There’s a fairly easy Brussels - Cologne - Brest - Moscow route, returning through Orscha - Brest - Terespol - Warsaw - Berlin, which looks fun, and only takes a couple of days each way, so should still be fun by the end. The Die Bahn site is a godsend for working out cross-border trains.

I’m tempted to break it en route, though. Probably in Warsaw on the way out and Berlin on the way home, although only for a night each way so I’ve still got most of a full week in Moscow.

The new year party invites are coming through. Two so far, including dog racing at Walthamstow. Fantastic. Private box, though, which I’m not sure will be as much fun as the stands. Still, can’t wait.

I’m trying desperately to remember what double-reverse forecast means, as it won me some money last time. (Or even if that’s the right phrase).

Gym this evening with Kevin, who is sickeningly close to fulfilling his new years resolution of finishing off his six-pack (or bar of chocolate as they apparently call it in France). He had a head start last year, of course, but it’s still only taken three months, which is practically obscene.