Status-Q

For those not familiar with the finer points of operation of the British postbox, the little metal label just above the slot is changed by the postman on each visit, to indicate the day of the next collection. This one got inverted by mistake, making it appear as if our local service might be rather prompter than usual!

We weren't the only people enjoying the Delacorte mechanical clock in Central Park last week...

I drove from Pittsburgh back to Detroit a couple of days ago. Five hours of, frankly, not very interesting roads, relieved only by a good selection of podcasts and a rather splendid sunset somewhere near the Ohio/Michigan border.

For those following its progress, Rose's book is now generally available in the States. We found it on the shelves of a Borders in Ann Arbor this morning.

It's also starting to appear in other forms. Those with a Sony eBook Reader can find it here, while those who prefer audiobooks and have a fair bit of cash to spare can get 14 enjoyable hours of listening here. I quite like the CD cover:

The official launch & signing is in Allen Park, Michigan, on Saturday.

Any idea what this is?

It's a punt pole, with my camera attached to the end using a Gorillapod. Look, here's a close-up:

And why, you might ask, would you want to do this?

Well, when my pal Bill Thompson organised this year's geek punting picnic, PuntCon, I felt I needed to find a suitably geeky way to take a photo of the gathering. So I put my camera on a timer and raised the pole. It's a bit tricky to aim, but here is at least a part of the group:

Many thanks to Bill (and everyone else) for a most enjoyable afternoon.

Here are mine of him on Tuesday:

I’ve always felt that one of the things I’d miss most if I ever left the UK for, say, America, is our network of public footpaths. I’ve spent many a happy weekend afternoon on them, discovering places I’d never seen before.

An example from this afternoon for all you Cambridge residents. Where, within 10 miles of the city centre, can you find white limestone cliffs? You can’t see them from the road.

They’re a lot more dramatic than they look here, too.

But as well as drama this afternoon, there was beauty:

And history:

and cuteness:

But the cutest moment came near the end of my walk when, hearing lots of cheeping coming from the river, I went closer and saw a couple of swans and three cygnets heading homewards:

There was quite a current, and the little one were having to work hard to keep up.

But no, wait, I was mistaken. Four cygnets:

One had obviously found the current a bit too much and had to be given a lift.

They headed off in the evening sun.

And so did I.

More photos here.

On Sunday morning we had a brief power outage at home. Everything went quiet, and my little electricity monitor, which normally shows a usage of somewhere around 1kW, displayed a number I hadn't seen before:

All of a sudden, I understood the appeal of trying to generate your own power and get 'off the grid'. It must be quite satisfying to see how low you can get this number in normal daily life.

I met a jay the other day as I was picking up my bike at Cambridge station. A cheerful chap - he dodged most of my attempts to photograph him... as I crept up on him he would flutter up in the air, circle round behind me, and land there. I'd turn around and creep in that direction, and when I got almost close enough, he'd take off and land back behind me again.

We kept this up for a while, until he decided that a passing sycamore leaf was more interesting than me, and started teasing that instead, at which point I headed for home.