Materials Man

I worked in the Egyptian desert, it’s western desert, as an inspector of civil works. The whole trip was an experience particularly Cairo. I know cities can sprawl, but Cairo when flying over it in a small plane is huge!! Anyway to the desert, the company I worked for, was, from memory Solus engineering and the guys i worked with were all brits, so we stuck together. Americans were there of course and that multi-national company Schlumberger. Anyway to the point of the blog, El Alamein, amongst our group were two pot smokers,  plus me and a scouscer boiler maker who was employed as a welding inspector. Anyway we had long drunk our duty free and somehow the longest served guy there a cockney welding inspector acquired a 4 x 4 vehicle, a Lada Niva, and suggested we go to El Alamein for a few beers and a meal on our day off. Camp life is boring so this seemed unmissable.
We reached El Alamein without event, as I recall, and as you near the place, I was going to type town there but it is not that, there is evidence of battle, with tanks and other combative vehicles lying around half buried in the sand.
There was as I recall three mausoleums, a German one, a British one and one I can’t remember. I do remember walking through the British graveyard all with the same head stones, but it was the ages of the dead that got to me, 19 to 21 predominated.
We found the hotel had plenty of beer and a meal, the scoucser spewed into the bottom of a palm tree outside the hotel and we went back to camp. I was very interested in my safety on the way back as the driver not only had loads of beer but he and the other smoker smoked spliffs all the way back. I have to admit he was very alert and aware, and trust me I wasn’t half asleep pissed, if he showed the slightest unsafe manoeuvre, I was going to demand to drive. As I recall getting back to camp the gate security person was informed we were mickey mouse and Donald duck and friends. Could not help going to bed chuckling !!

Sent by Wimpey Asphalt to set up a post as technical manager, I arrived in Hong Kong, the MD immediately set about me with beer and the need to stay. I was resolute having been an expat I had to measure up the place. It did not measure up, plus for the first time in my life I had jet lag!! When you lie awake in the middle of the night having had a belly full of beer you know you are in trouble. So what of Hong Kong? Great for shopping, terrible for driving, most cars are automatic, because you are always in a jam. You can tell it’s crowded from day one, and also rich, if you judge wealth by the cars around you, and the number that need dough to buy them, the place has wealthy people.
Strange things happen, I suppose to everybody by association with others, but when you change your others to a well heeled lawyer whose sister is your cleaner and cook, (don’t ask, it’s about pride) then another world can open up. Wealth, cars, boats, property.
I did see from my automatic Toyota, people’s debris from sleeping under flyovers, so not all wealthy. But it never is, Hong Hong was then buzzing, those people are not Chinese communist types, (whatever that means) they work hard and want to prosper.
Why did I not stay? the natural environment was knackered, anything that moved was game, there were no open areas where natural life was confined and accessible. Humanity prevailed !! terrible to behold.
Want to shop? Hong Kong cannot be beaten.
Want to be surrounded by more people than you can imagine, who are polite and do not pester you or beg, Hong Kong is the place.

Pete and I were so fed up with St Lucia, that from information gleaned from the Italian owner of our local restaurant / bar the Il pirata (the pirate) we decided at Christmas we were off. Landed Christmas eve got to hotel, booked in and took to our feet. We were lucky to get fed and watered by 9.0pm as everywhere was closing down. So ended up in bed early to be woken at 12.00 when the whole place went mad with fireworks and a street full of people. We stayed in bed. Next day we started to explore on foot, public transport was closed. Caracas is cosmopolitan, typical type street cafes where you sit and have waiter service, great, sit drink beer and watch Caracas go by. Next day the city got back to normal and we used the brilliant underground / overground rail system. As I recall we bought an anywhere travel ticket and we got off and on as we pleased, it was and is my most pleasant experience of public travel. The rail system is not just limited to Caracas but goes way outside the city limits. Memorably on one of these outside city limits trips we were in a bar at lunchtime, well you have to support the local economy! who sidles up to us but an ex Bishop from Wales, who worked in Venezuela, who wanted the crack in English. Pete had worked in Wales near the guys birthplace so that was a flowing conversation, but I did not like this bloke, and old soak living on a pension paid by UK tax payers, he boasted he could afford a chauffeur, just as well the amount he drank, interesting though. Caracas came to mind because of the recent referendum on Hugo Chavez being able to stand forever as president. Pride cometh before a fall!
Angel falls we did not get to, very expensive, but we did explore Caracas and it’s hinterland and it was as very pleasant break. I would not go there from Europe as a holiday, it is not a usual tourist destination, but if you are nearby, Caracas is well worth a visit.

Being a juror, not just called to court but one of the chosen 15, that has to note the evidence and make some sense of it. There is a natural reluctance to be one of the chosen 15, as evidenced by the reactions to being chosen and not being chosen. so there you are chosen, huckled, no escape apart from a serious ailment with a doctors note, or a pre-booked holiday of a lifetime. Both these cards were played during the currency of the trial and 15 became 13. Still a majority verdict had to be 8, hmm.. the law is not mathematical then, nor is it immediately comprehensible, or on further explanation. Being in court and part of the jury is not like any other circumstance you will have met in daily life, (unless you’re a ned) you have to listen and note your comments on what you hear, this results in much listening and note taking, you are only interacting at that level, if you spontaneously speak as one of us did, then the Sheriff has cause to interrupt the proceedings and explain very nicely and firmly that however much you feel that you can interact during proceedings, you cannot. Nor can you discuss the evidence on retiral to the jury room, or on resuming your “normal life”. this to me was an issue as I had 32 pages of notes and could not discuss the evidence incrementally as the discourse evolved. We had to wait to the end of proceedings, always leaving our notes in the jury room, then resume and make sense of witnesses that were unreliable (in part) had an agenda (well all did) and try to discover where the truth was, (long gone.) Quite obviously the truth had, lets say been modified, from all witnesses, perhaps? In this case witnesses had deliberately changed statements made to police at the time or soon after to a 180 degree position, a U turn, made some days after. Hmm.. makes you wonder, worse, makes you concerned about what statement to use as “proper evidence”. Back in the Jury room in deliberation, a critical component, is the appointment of a spokesperson. Well let’s tell its like it is, a foreman. Our foreman was a woman, (three voted to occupy the position) from the 13 remaining, my choice was chosen, a focused, inclusive woman who had demonstrated, to me at least, people skills. Still it was not easy, we vacillated, conjectured, speculated, considered our notes continuously and treated the whole thing with complete respect and seriousness, in most part!

The wee lass next to me with a name like an Italian wine could not look at the accused. You can deduce the verdict from that, I however was sure of the decision given the evidence, so hell mend, but the evidence was difficult to assimilate into a coherent whole, no forensic, all photos, part police statements and witness statements.

Why are nightclubs not made to have a duty of care for patrons inside and outside within a perimeter defined? this would I am sure have the result of outside lighting and CCTV cameras. In essence this case above would with CCTV camera evidence; have been shorter, or the accused would have plead guilty or the case would never have been brought to court. Plus had some of the local participants who piled into the melee realised cameras were in action the assault would never have escalated. A few blows swung, separation, and calm down folks, take ten.

What I am telling you tax payers from this eye opening experience, is;  nightclubs with a history of violence are costing you and I money, lots of it!  The legal profession will not seek to amend the law on commonsense values like improve the evidence by installing….., this is bread and butter to them, and thick butter on thick bread!!

Once I’d seen images of grizzly bears catching salmon I was sold.  I had to go see for myself and try to capture similar images.

After a bit of research on the web and through photographic forums my wife and I came up with only a few options where we could view grizzlies in the wild, have guaranteed sightings (well almost!), and be safe all at the same time.  We chose Brooks Falls in Alaska, within the Katmai National Park, for our adventure of a lifetime.  Further research lead us to our tour operator Katmailand at www.katmailand.com.  [As a wee aside - the salmon start their "run" upstream in June/July and that's when you see the grizzlies stand at the top of Brooks Falls and catch the salmon as they leap up the falls.  Traditionally our main holiday is in September and we wanted to stick with this.  The grizzlies hang around Brooks River until late September when the salmon have spawned and "float" downstream again into the bellies of the bears.  We had no fears therefore of going in September and not seeing bears].  We booked 2 nights at Brooks Lodge in Katmai NP in September 2007.  Incedentally, we had to book about 10 months in advance to secure places.  If going in July you need to be off your marks 18 months earlier.  Katmailand’s tour starts in Anchorage, Alaska so we chose to combine our visit to the see the bears with a tour of the Seattle/Portland area (the Pacific North West) – more of this in later blogs.

Our travel itinerary from Scotland comprised the following.  We flew Zoom Airlines from Glasgow to Vancouver, picked up a car and drove south to Seattle.  After 1 night in Seattle we flew Continental Airlines to Anchorage where we hit the sack for another night.  Next day we flew Pen Air to King Salmon then by float plane into Katmai NP and Brooks Lodge itself.  As soon as you step off the float plane onto the beach you see the bears and all the travel weariness disappears and turns into adrenaline.

After a safety induction (on bear sense, etc) we and all the other visitors (around 20 “ish”) were shown our room for the next two nights.  It was basic but perfectly comfortable.  After all, we were on an adventure!

We were able to move relatively freely around the Lodge area and beach.  The most basic rule is to stay at least 50m from any bear.  We were sheperded past any bottlenecks, where bears were on paths or in the river near paths, by the NP Rangers.  The bears always had ”right of way” and the Rangers policed this rigidly.  You feel very safe and provided you have a long lens on the camera you still get great photos.  For the photograph buffs anything shorter than a 300mm lens is pretty useless and a tripod/monopod is more-or-less essential.  Brooks Falls is about a mile upstream from the Lodge along a forest land rover track.  You had to be vigilant when you were on the track and whilst we never saw any bears en route between Lodge and Falls you could never be sure you wouldn’t.  The only saving grace is that there are so many salmon in the river that the bears don’t need to eat humans!!  Also, in September, the bears have had a summer of plentiful food making them rather plump and lethargic.

Food is not included in the package from Katmailand but Brooks Lodge has a cafe/restaurant.  Although the visitors have literally no option other than to eat at the lodge the food there is good, wholesome stuff and reasonably priced.  This was a great place to share the days experiences with other visitors.   My guess is that 80% of the visitors were photographers so there was plenty of good chat around the open fire.

It was a huge adventure for us and we were thrilled to be there, feeling priveledged to view these beautiful creatures in their natural habitat.  We will go back – next time in the July, to see the salmon leaping into the waiting  jaws of the grizzlies.

Now for the photos:

An aeriel shot of Brooks River where it enters Naknek Lake.  In September most of the bears are in this area just plucking salmon our of the water as and when they fancy.

The several visits we made to the Falls revealed only one big fella there.  He seemed to be a bit of a loner, preferring to stay away from the action downstream.  Here he is seen tearing the skin of a salmon he has just “dived” for.  The poor thing was still wriggling!

Sometimes they hunted in packs.

One of my favourite shots from the trip was this wee one peeking round the corner.  The warm golden light suited his/her fluffy brown coat perfectly.

More images can be seen here:  http://www.pbase.com/davidleask/brookslodge

Prauge is a very beautiful city, especially in December when the Christmas markets are on the go.  Here are my thoughts and musings after a long weekend trip there last December.

We flew from Edinburgh to Prague using Jet2.com – very easy and quite cheap.  You may hear “horror” stories about being ripped off by taxi drivers and to make sure you book a transfer from the airport.  These transfers will cost around £40 return.  We chose to find our own way into the city from the airport.  Get on the 119 bus to Dejvicka metro station (it’s the bus terminus so you won’t get lost) and from there take the underground into the city.  It cost us £0.80 each, eachway – a total of £3.20!  The metro, trams and buses are all linked in that the same ticket does all.  You pay about £0.80 for 75 minutes and you can jump on and off as many times in the 75 minutes you want.

We stayed at the Hotel Cloisters, a very comfortable hotel in the old town close to all the attractions.  We were 5/10 mins walk from the river, the Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square.  Highly recommended!

We found that in most places communication with the locals was very easy, with most understanding basic English (very humbling really).

Food stops / eating places were plentiful and you could eat in “any country” you wanted.  Price-wise things were not cheap, probably because of the poor exchange rate, and food/drink were costing about the same as the UK.

Whilst the transport system is excellent (and cheap) we walked a lot.  The city itself is very compact and is best savoured as a pedestrian.

Our favourite places were the Old Town Square, Wenceslas Square, Prague Castle and anywhere along the river.  Whilst you are there take in an ice hockey game, you’ll love it!

Prague Castle as seen from the river side downstream of Charles Bridge.

The Old Town Square and the Christmas Markets as seen from the Clock Tower.

A quaint street in the Old Town, taken at 5am before the throngs started to arrive.

Well you must have come across them, the criticisers, those who have a knowledge of the rules but not the activity. Usually they are in the control line, the purse string command line. As I referred  golden rule in a previous post, he who has the gold, rules. They’re not really “jobs worths” usually well meaning, even thoughtful, helpful when it suits but lapse to criticism when the rule book cannot be obeyed. And sometimes it cannot be obeyed. Because the rule book does not apply to a current problem or covers all aspects of problems that it should.

English is a language that can be specific, detailed, yet disputes arise over meanings of words put together, say to form a contract. Perhaps the English language is too rich in meaning? Money causes polarisation of opinion and when in dispute and when the look back occurs 20/20 vision makes it clear to the look back observer how the other party went wrong. Of course in a rich diverse society we don’t have one contract between parties for a single transaction, too simple, contracts are made by the gold holders, within rules, theirs, risk is constantly eroded from gold holders and deposited on gold seekers.
So when contracts go wrong, who accumulates the most opprobrium? well those that have strived to fulfil their tasks, the problem solvers, the gold seekers, the gold holders set the rules, know them, and with self satisfied smirks raise problems and cannot solve them. that’s why they’re gold holders.
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!

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