socket it to me

EDIT: Of course the title should say socket to me. Having posted it with the typo in, though, I shall be honest and leave it “as is.”

When I travel, I still try and keep working, so am pleased that many trains now provide electrical sockets where I can plug in my computer.

The labelling of this one intrigued me, though:

power socket in train: "laptops and mobile phones only"
Can someone please enlighten me as to what other appliances people carry with them that they might be tempted to use while travelling by train?
Continue reading “socket it to me”

from a railway carriage

In case anyone who read Boxing Day (posted on December 26th) might be envious of me enjoying glorious sunshine on an exotic beach, let me clarify that it was an old poem, and, as is usually the case, I am not the narrator.

To clarify further, this is a photo taken from the window of a train I was travelling on yesterday:

floods at Gloucester, UK, December 2012

Continue reading “from a railway carriage”

Boxing Day

on a foreign shore: icing-tipped waves
toss tinsel into the clear air. We play
at Wenceslas in the sand, taking it in turns
to be the page. We look for sea holly and sing
carols under the curious gaze
of a parrot in a palm tree.

palm tree close up

(Like the last couple of posts it’s not new. It’s also a repost, but I think the blog has different readers now. Incidentally, don’t waste time trying to find the parrot in the photo: it wasn’t actually that palm tree!)

no joke

One more post prompted by my trip to Madrid this week: at metro Bilbao, my attention was caught by this advert:

yommana thai concept advert
There has to be a joke there somewhere, but “Yo momma is una auténtica terapeuta tailandesa – a real Thai masseuse” just doesn’t seem to work.
Continue reading “no joke”

musings on the metro

My trip to Madrid this week involved a lot of rushing around, and a lot of trips on the Metro.

madrid metro video still
At Gran Vía, the whole of the station is currently plastered with posters advertising The Hobbit – due out in Spain today. As I scurried up and down escalators and along dank tunnels, I remembered the book’s opening: Continue reading “musings on the metro”