Wu Wei

How did they know?

Just settling down with the Saturday version of Lietuvos Rytas and out popped some advertising material saying in English on one side "Arriving in a new country".  I turned it over, and saw "Help! We're lost".

On closer inspection, it turned out to be advertising English lessons for Lithuanians, and not personal help for me.  Though I suppose it will help brush up my Lithuanian vocabulary.

Life's changing (2) and hello to Vilnius (again)

And very nice it is too, to be back after six years away.  

Still battling with decisions about furniture, shopping and unpacking.  More later (but off to Tbilisi on Sunday).

Some of the European Capital of Culture is still left after the cuts.  Have been going to the concerts of the First Klezmeriu Festivalis in Vilnius. For klezmer music see here  and here.

Life's changing for Bee too, she's got her place at LSE and is having a gap year before starting.

And life's also changing for Nibbles.  She's parked for an extended holiday with my sister in Wiltshire, and suffers the indignity of sharing a home with another cat.  Got to rescue her soon.

Quiet August in Tbilisi

It's a bit quieter here in Tbilisi than last year.  For a rerun see here.

This year, it's just cyber attacks so far.

Read about it here (PCWorld)  and here (BBC).

It brought down Twitter, and partially Google, YouTube, Livejournal and Facebook, as the bots attacked the accounts of Cyxymi, a blogger who reports on both Russian and Georgian.  His name when transliterated reads Sukhumi, the town on the Black Sea in Abkhazia.

Another own goal for the Russians, even if it wasn't the Kremlin. More defences are being built against cyber attacks, which so far publicity always links with Russia.

Life's changing (1): Farewell to Oxford

Finally made it out yesterday, leaving Bee to sell the final furniture.  She's off on hols to Albania (don't ask, she has been there once already).  I'm in Georgia for a week, while my worldly goods get to Vilnius, then I finally move into my new apartment, finished or not.  Mostly not.  It's hard to concentrate on more than one home at a time.

So this is really the end of family  living in the same place. After Moscow, Sloph is in Edinburgh interning for as long as she can, and Bee's having a gap year before LSE (fingers crossed for exam results on August 20).  Not that we exactly spent a lot of time in the same home, since I wasn't home much in the last couple of years. 

But now we predict we might not meet again till Christmas (in my new home) so we really are dispersed.

Not sure I will really miss Oxford.  Despite what you might think, most of the people I met were rather narrowminded and not interested in very much life outside Oxford. Consequently I shall miss the Cowley Road with its cosmopolitan life, shops, cafes, restaurants and general eccentricity, more than anything else.

Costa doesn't care

Bee and I are doing a survey of public wireless down the Cowley rd now with our iPods. We can state with confidence that Costa Coffee's wireless doesn't work with Macs or iPhones. This has been true for months and they simply can't be bothered to fix it. How's that for service?