I've just got myself an account with flickr and I'm trying it out with my Chamonix photos. So if you'ld like to see the full story looky here. But I thought a post a couple up here as well to give you a taster. Also flickr doesn't seem to like the size of some my panorama shots so I'll include them here as well.


Suffice to say it was a GREAT holiday. It just what I hoped it would be when I booked it and many congrats to Alex, Steve and Nicky for coming up with a great formula at Coldfusion. Good luck with the rest of the season.

Things started pretty well. Day 1 looked mostly like this:

And it carried on looking like that until Christmas. It didn't snow on Christmas day but there was a wicked hoar frost


The clouds were low but the mountains were high so a quick trip up to les Grands Montets provided a great view: the first time I'd skied above a cloud inversion since a school trip in about 1982!

Back at the chalet Christmas dinner was being prepared. We had the full on turkey etc and enterained Thierry and his family, the man who owns the chalet. One of the guests had organised a secret santa thing as well so everyone got a present. The rigorously laid out rules defined a limit of 10EUR and presents with a comedy/cheesy/naff value! In fact I got one of those fantastic cow-moo-noise makers. It's cracking!



The final one is from the opposite side of the valley. On the last day I went up the Aiguille du Midi, Europe's highest cable car at 3842m. It was freeeeezing up there, which may explain why the panorama doesn't line up so well. But it's quite a sight. And I was thrilled to spot the Matterhorn away in the distance (I think!). Can you see it?


Good times.

But one thing just wasn't quite right. This hotel in Les Praz bothered me:

I'm snatching a few moments before the apres-ski kicks in to sneak off to the most charming, wooden, alpine-style cyber cafe I've ever seen. Genial!

Cham rules! That's the headline. There's plenty of snow (although the off-piste is sketchy) and they are saying this is the best Chrimbo snow for years. Beautiful sunny skiing at the moment. The mountain scenery is absolutely stunning.

MY NEW SKIS RULE!!!!! That should be the sub-headline but in a a big font. Rossignol B2's are as good as all the reviews say. You can go anywhere: fast.

The Chalet is cracking. It's brand new and we are the first guests. The rest of the punters are singles in the sense of individuals and it's a really great group. Best of all the chalet isn't full and we've all got our own room. Formidable!

Apologies to Ant n Dec there for messing with their lyrics. But as of Tuesday I'm on my hols. Road-trip!! Vay-kay!!! W00T!

I'm very excited.

I'm of to Chamonix which is somewhere I've always wanted to go. The early season snow looks great and I'm really looking forward to my first white Christmas since leaving Canada in 1978. My thinking was that as this is my first Christmas without mum and dad I ought to get away from it all; despite many very kind offers (thank you everyone) I just didn't want to be part of someone elses Christmas.

Intriguingly I may have inadvertently booked myself on a singles holiday! I'm staying here at the Coldfusion Chalets. Looks very nice and I was attracted to the bit about being "Europe?s first and only provider of ski and snowboard holidays exclusively for individuals." The way I see it I'm someone travelling on my own, ergo I'm an individual, at least in the holidaymaking sense. Am I being very dense? Is this a massive and broadly understood euphemism? Because two weeks ago I got an email from an internet dating site I was once involved in (lets not go there right now, ok?) telling me about Cold Fusion - Singles Ski & Snowboard Holidays.

I might just be me, but Singles is a world away from Individuals. Hmmm

You never know, I might even get what I want for Christmas this year* :) I'll let you know.

In the meantime Happy Christmas, one and all.

This week I have mostly been buying... Modern Art!

I can't really believe it but thanks to the money my mum left me I've been able to do something I never thought I'd do. I've bought something by my favourite artist, Callum Innes! Not one of his fantastic Exposed Paintings (maybe one day) but a set of 5 prints he's done.

Wanna see?

Not everyone's cup of tea but it's sooooo my cup of tea. His pictures are deceptively simple yet wonderfully profound. A state I've always aspired to myself....

The picture is the actual set of prints that I'm buying! The Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh is exhibiting them at the moment and they'll send them to me when the exhibition ends in January. I still can't believe I'm going to have genuine Callum Innes work in my flat.

The funny thing is that I always get very nervous when buying something expensive, but not this time. This just felt really right. I think it's because I'll always have them and always remember that they were, in a way, a present from mum. I think she'd be surprised, but delighted as well.

Details of the private view to follow...

A great quote from today's Snowmail:

John Prescott's just addressed Parliament, stressing the importance of the new kit available to fire crews - notably water pumps recently used in the Carlisle floods and he announced an inquiry to take place as the opposition raised questions about oil depot security. Also - there was an irresistible 'Prescottism' when he told the House that 'hydrocardamoms' had been released into the atmosphere.

Is he not fragrant?

"Wetter than James Blunt in a washing machine"

There was a wonderful winter light around Hammersmith and the Bush yesterday afternoon so I had a bit of a wander with my camera...

Today is the first anniversary of mum's death. I went to work as normal as I thought it would be a bit self-indulgent to take the day off. But I made sure I took some time at lunchtime to be alone and to think about mum. Of course I think about her all the time and I still feel as I've always felt: that she is still a powerful presence in my life. But this time, maybe for the first time since she died, I went looking for thoughts of her.

It was hard actually. Not hard to find thoughts and memories but harder to deal with them than I expected. Because for all that I do feel she is still a big part of my life, I do really, really miss her too. I keep debating the question "Do I wish she was still here" and really, I don't. Her death was a merciful release from years of suffering and pain so I know without doubt that I wouldn't have wished her another day of that. That made coming to terms with her death a lot easier. I've always tried not to wish for some state of the world that didn't actually exist where she was in normal health for a woman in her early 70s, alert and vigorous like so many of her friends. What good would that do?

But today at lunchtime I did rather wish for that. I wished that she was still here and I could take her out for lunch or bring her up to London and cook her dinner in my flat . Not to be alas. I was happysad as well: proud and happy of her extraordinary life and example, proud of how warmly everyone remembers her and dad. Just proud, extraordinarily proud, that she was my mum and nothing can ever change or take that away.

Turner Prize: Simon Starling has won the Turner Prize for his work Shedboatshed. Sounds like a much needed dose of Tommy Cooper into the contemporary arts scene:

[tommy cooper voice]Shed-Boat. Boat-Shed. Ahhhahhaha[/tommy cooper voice]

Tory Boy: David Cameron is the Queen's 5th cousin twice removed. There's some hard-core genealogy going down these days.

Just back from the last NSN of the season. It was another cracking show, sold out and full of fun. It was great to bounce back from the flat show on Friday and really "lay some pipe" as a wise man once told me.

ADDENDUM:
Just wanted to mention what a great turn out from ThoughtWorks there was on the last night (as well as on the first night). 2 whole rows of the audience were ThoughtWorkers, including all the team on my current project, a friend from my previous project and a good number I've never worked with (most of whom weren't even native English speakers!). I think that really says something about the people at TW. They are positive, supportive and up for a laugh. Thanks everyone.

I am indebted to Tom for this classic web-goodness: http://www.4q.cc/t/index.php?topthirty

Had a second corporate gig last night. Hmmmm. Was neither a triumph or a disaster but it was certainly hard going. We were in a big room where probably 80% of the audience could see us, 60% could hear us and 40% were sitting down. Not great numbers but still, we got it done and I was really proud of the team (Andy, George, Briony, Dom) for keeping their mojo going all the way through.