No-one Expects the Secret Police

Since the beginning of 2009 I’ve been trying to keep up with a personal challenge to read one book per month and so far it’s been going  well, so well in fact I have managed to keep a book ahead by reading two during May while on Holiday. My recent reading list has included:

• Bit of a Blur – Alex James
• Grow Up – Keith Allen
• Watchmen (Graphic Novel) – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
• Moab is my Washpot – Stephen Fry
• America Unchained – Dave Gorman
• Anyone can do it: My Story – Duncan Bannatyne

My brother bought me the first two books as a Christmas present. I don’t remember having read any autobiographies in the past couple of years so it kicked off a trend. I find them interesting in that those who write them seem to have impeccable memories for events occurring decades earlier. As someone who can’t remember what he had for lunch yesterday I find this ability quite something. Keith Allen’s in-particularly had a great amount of detail of his early years and yet the most recent decade was almost a footnote, which was a shame because it was a fun read and I’m sure there must be more to it. Duncan Bannatyne’s however was more what I expected, knowing his audience his detail focused on his early career years up to the modern day and at points admitted uncertainty about events early in his life which is unique on the books I’ve read and far more believable!

Something went a bit awry with my challenge recently however as I took to reading more than one book at a time which I usually avoid doing as it leaves a lot of unfinished stories but this time round I’ve made enough time to continue a few. It started by reading a non-fiction book to learn the Python programming language called ‘Dive into Python‘. It started well, I was absorbing lots of new knowledge at a rapid rate but by the 6th chapter I realised that I had gaps in my knowledge as reference was made to concepts I had no understanding of which presented a big brick wall to my progression. I accepted this book was too advanced for my level so I switched to ‘Learning Python‘, a book from the ubiquitous O’Reilly series which had a good write-up. I bought this book for 99p on eBay (see last post) and it has been good so far. Learning the Python language has involved a lot of additional reading on the web and another book kept coming up which was ‘Think Python‘ which was available for free download and so I started dipping into this one and now I’m about half-way through both books covering the same subject at the same level although both approaching it in a different way and I’m learning different things from both which dissuades me from dropping one of them, forcibly continuing my efforts with both!

Similarly I bought a few of the River Cottage handbooks a few months ago and I’ve been dipping in and out of them since I received them as I’ve been growing veg – the subject of handbook 4 – and I’ve been learning to bake different kinds of bread – the subject of handbook 3. I’ve also been reading an old classic ‘The Richest Man in Babylon‘ and I’m half-way through Barack Obama’s ‘Dreams from my Father‘. Without realising it I’ve stretched my reading time rather thinly and I expect I may fail my new year’s challenge for a few months then rapidly catch up unless I can find more time with my now substantial stack of dead trees!

One thing’s for sure though, I’ve been reading a lot more this year so in a sense, even if I fail my challenge I will still achieve my goal!

Canon EOS 650, originally uploaded by DSNelson.

A few weeks ago I had a bit of a splurge on eBay which is not commonly seen of me usually but when you’re on a roll you just have to go with it. I starting by purchasing a replacement heater blower motor for my car (the thing that pushes air through the internal heating system) as my old one packed in a couple of weeks earlier. I also purchased an IT book called “Learning Python” that I wanted for my recent study on the subject and then I saw that the person selling this book was also selling a small library of IT books at 99p each; in all I found 6 that were relevant to my interests most of which were won for 99p or not for than a pound more. My final purchase was the Canon EOS 650 (pictured) from the Real Camera shop in Manchester who I’ve had dealings with before.

This is the very first Canon EOS SLR model from 1987 and for the £5 I paid for it, this beauty was an absolute bargain! It’s also in very good condition, like it’s never been used. This particular copy is the second one I’ve had as the first one had a fault with the film advance motor but the very nice people at Real Camera happily replaced it for me.

I have since loaded the camera with some out-of-date Fuji Superia film that I bought for my even older manual SLR camera a few years back. That camera fell out of use after I bought my DSLR but I’m hoping the film is still capable of producing some reasonable pictures.

This model has much of the functionality found in my much newer DSLR, it’s interesting to see how far the technology has come in the last 22 years and I’m looking forward to the first results which won’t be far off. I have only one lens which fits this camera as my others are EF-S mount which work only on digital cameras, this lens is my Sigma 70mm Macro which is fortunately one of my favourites as it’s very very sharp and on a 35mm provides a good viewing angle for portraits so expect to see a good few of these on my Flickr stream in the near future!

Pest Back-streets, originally uploaded by DSNelson.

We resurfaced at Hősök tere (Heroes Square) which is a wide open space with a large monument in the centre surrounded by museums and galleries at either side; it’s quite a sight. We wandered past the monument through to the park behind and around the lake where children and ducks were playing. We passed a restaurant that seemed to float on top of the lake which played smooth jazz music while patrons ate on the patio (pictured). Heading towards the spa at the northern end of the park we picked up a large pretzel which put nearly put my body into shock from the enormous dose of rock salt, once we could take no more we fed the rest to the birds and watched them flock from miles around at our feet.

The Széchenyi Gyógyfürdő was our spa of choice which occupies the northern corner of the park. The Széchenyi is a popular destination for tourists particularly, it is modeled like a roman villa with spa-pool-after-spa-pool dotted around the buildings surrounding 3 central outside pools. After paying our 2900HUF (about £9-ish) each we were provided with a card for locker access and a hanger for our clothes we changed and headed through to the spa pools.

“Spa-culture” is common in Budapest and although £9 seems expensive by UK standards you will typically spend at least half a day in the Spa to relax and socialise, this is also the cheaper end of the scale. The Széchenyi I would compare with a high-end council swimming pool with the same kind of clientèle. We chose this one based on the fact that because I was with Carolynne, it not only allowed women, which isn’t always the case, but the baths were also fully mixed whereas some pools only partially mix genders in some pools. Some pools also disallow bathing costumes and I’m not well-traveled enough to shed my English modesty just yet.

The water is tinted green with minerals from the ground (and possibly other patrons but you try not the think about that) and it smells distinctly of sulphur with the occasional noxious cloud drifting past. The pools are small or large, shallow or deep, hot or cold with various combinations of each so there’s no shortage of choice. There are also whirlpools, hot tubs, steam rooms and saunas each designed to stretch your tolerances to each extreme environment. It was a nice sunny day outside and so the central pools were teeming with bathers speaking all manner of languages amongst their little groups. The first pool was my favourite at 38 degrees, it was like a huge hot bath with a fountain in the centre, by the side of the pool you can sit on the steps and chat or if you liked there were a number of chess games taking place at one side of the pool which seemed very popular. Although I enjoy my chess I decided against playing this time.

4 hours later…

We took a walk though Pest to find some food following the guidance of our tour book. After walking some 25 minutes around back-streets we found our chosen restaurant from the tour book, and it was closed down so opted for “Paul’s Pub” that we saw on the way. Paul’s pub looked like an English pub on the outside but once inside it was a trendy wine bar, sports bar and restaurant with no consistency in the menu. The Hungary national football team were playing on the big screen TV which meant service was slow from the distracted waiter/patron. We had a bottle of wine and ordered our food. Mine was a pancake wrapping a chicken breast in melted Gorgonzola cheese which was very nice. Carolynne chose chicken kebabs sticks which came with many things on that she couldn’t eat, and later the rest we found she couldn’t digest.. After eating we got speaking with a couple of other customers, a Hungarian football fan who spoke good English and supported Manchester United, a British contractor in tax-exile on his way back from Dubai and an American named Bill from North Carolina who became our friend for the evening.

Bill is a gaunt man of his 60’s who’s American citizenship is indicated by the peaked cap ever present on American tourists. He currently resides in Paris although by his own admission he lacks a real home. He took us to a wine bar just round the corner which was one of his favourites and has a reputation for being one of the finest in Budapest. In all honesty I can’t rate it much for his staff or the decor but the wine was certainly passable. Bill regaled us with stories of his travels, his experiences with pick-pockets and gave us some useful insights into Budapest as he has been a frequent visitor over the past decade. As one of the very few people we’d met so far that spoke fluent English it was nice to have a conversation that wasn’t overly challenging, particularly as at this point I was coming down with a migraine from being out in the sun too long and not helped by a smell I haven’t experienced in a pub since sometime around the 1st July 2007…cigarettes!

At the point my headache became unbearable we said our goodbyes and attempted unsuccessfully to find our number 8. After this we made another mistake in-spite of being warned of it previously, we took a taxi from the street. After attempting to agree an up-front price and failing we traveled back to hour hotel watching the metre rise at a rapid rate. The final value came to something near £15 which is expensive back home and obscene in Budapest given the distance. Not having full-enough wits to have a successful argument with the 20 stone skin-head driver we paid and went to bed.

To be continued…