Andy Oakley

A slow couple of days has made for a good change from the last few weeks. Plenty of time to watch the (American) football today, which is a habit I’m really starting to take to. The Seahawks ended their 3-0 standing with a rather conclusive defeat by the Packers, and the Drunken Brits might just be within reach of their first win of the season.

While listening to an old Morcheeba song, I started thinking about idioms and lore that have worked their way into English.I think Rome has the most: Everyone knows all roads lead to Rome, which wasn’t built in a day, and, when in Rome apathy burns strong.What an honor, to be immortalized in language.

Books are great. When travelling, it’s going to take a huge amount of technological development before I’m willing to part with any bound volumes of paper.

• Brave New World (Aldous Huxley). Well worth reading, certainly food for thought. Amidst the lively delivery, there is quite a scary idea lurking just beneath the surface. Given its age (1932), it’s quite amazing to see how some things have come true (and thankfully, many others have not). I still wonder whether it was ever considered possible (and on the same note, 1984) when it was first received, or whether it was thought far-fetched as such a book would be labelled today. I’m on the lookout for any recent works that compare.
• Life of Pi. Great book for a long plane flight and it inspired my last trip to London Zoo. Sadly, it didn’t provide the proof of the existence of God as implied on the back cover, so the last page only brought a hollow victory.
• Man and Wife (Tony Parsons). A good sequel to Man and Boy, but didn’t quite match up to the original story. Even with its shortcomings, a good plane read.

I started reading Catch-22 on the way back from the UK this time. Enjoying it so far, although I can’t seem to dodge the notion that it’s going to turn into "M*A*S*H: The Novel". We’ll see.

Jetlag is one of those things think you can beat if you just hold resolve and drink enough coffee, but in the end it gets you. It’s Thursday, and I’m starting to feel last weekend.However, I did come across a great site called The Budget Travellers Guide to Sleeping in Airports. Heathrow may be getting a bit old school these days, but it’s a fine place to sleep.

Emily puts it so eloquently:

just a point to the boys – if you add up the times, Caius did 225.34 secs in total and we did 223.45, so if it had been on times (as I though it was…) we should have won – so the moral victory, if not the two bottles of Veuve Cliquot, remains with us!

It’s a misty morning in Seattle. On the tail end of what has definitely been a great summer, I’m actually quite looking forward to the next few months. When it doesn’t rain, the cold air, the evergreen trees, the snow in the mountains and the mystery of the mist (20 yard visible on the bus right now), ah yes. ‘Fall’ is a good season in the Northwest.