Foreign news

I'm blogging from a coffee shop in cold and wet Durham. They have free wi-fi here, but say that we're not allowed to use their electricity. I love England.

Anyway, fellow Frome alumnus James spotted the article below. Emily was actually in Jenson Button's class at school. It's her biggest claim to fame...apart from being my sister, of course.

The freedom of Frome.

REAL Classic British Cuisine

Tonight we were entertained by Rachel, Chris, and new baby Erin. You leave the UK for 14 months and people do stuff like having babies. Anyway, Chris cooked up a classic dinner of roast beef, roast potatoes and Yorkshires, all finished off with sticky toffee pudding. Perfect!

Just a quick pic of me and my favourite mother-in-law. Got to keep her sweet!

And talking of sweet, here's Erin. She wasn't too interested in her food.

We, however, were very interested in ours (note: accompanying cup of tea).

Classic British Cuisine

Amazingly we all arrived at the Dumfries Travelodge (where you have to pay for wi-fi! I'm blogging from the Little Chef next door) within about half-an-hour of each other. Aperitifs were served a la mode Goodall in Mum and Dad's room, and then we made our way out to a restaurant. Where else but an Indian?

Dr and Dr Goodall, still happily married after all these months...

And the rest.

Come fly with me

Flew in from Miami Beach BOAC...actually SFO-LHR-NCL with BA.

Yes, we're back in the UK for Hannah's Granny's funeral. Granny Poole packed a lot into her 95 years, and had recently moved back to her beloved Scotland, so while it's a sad she certainly had a good innings - one that included five great-grandchildren! I can only hope that Hannah and I do as well.

Earlier today (or yesterday, possibly - somewhere mid-Atlantic the night disappeared) we found ourselves on the BART, tracing the familiar route to the airport. We checked bags crammed full of American junk food at the British Airways desk (failing, of course, to get an upgrade) and made our way to international departures. The plane was one of those huge 747s with an upstairs, and the distinction (apartheid?) was cruel when, part-way down the bridge to board, those lucky enough to fly first/business were syphoned off to their own airplane entrance! As Hannah so wisely said: never turn right.

The flight was uneventful. The entertainment system broke down, we could eat pasta or chicken, we drank G&Ts and slept. There was some turbulence over the North Atlantic. Soon we were in Heathrow Terminal Five and ate at Wagamama (the place of our last meal on English soil, back in August 2008) and then on another BA flight to Newcastle, where immigration was as strict as ever (i.e. invisible).

The final pieces of the puzzle fell into place when we collected both Katherine and a hire car and set off in a North-Westerly direction for Scotland and the rest of the family.

Our carriage awaits. Goodbye sunny California.

Thank you.

Why we fly British Airways.

The entertainment system.

On the tarmac in London. Surprisingly warm!

Civilisation.

More civilisation (and more expensive than in the US!)

A hard day's night.

Journey's end.

And here we are (with coffee from a famous British chain).

We hired the car, Katherine came free.

What's the steering wheel doing on this side?!

Charlie's Chocolates

It's got to be a good day when you discover a chocolate factory on your doorstep. Today was that moment! What's more, they offer free tours and tastings.

Charles Chocolates was started seven years ago by Charles 'Chuck' Siegel to create gourmet versions of his childhood favourite sweets. He was especially inspired by British Rolos (imported from Canada) apparently, and the first tasting we got was his twist on them. Pretty good! The high point was the peanut butterfly - what a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup should aspire to be.

A local chocolate factory? Someone's happy!

A nice selection.

Here's Charles himself, leading the factory tour, enjoying a latte as he does so.

Not like any Rolo I've ever seen, but tasty.

Happy Diwali!

And so, like the passing of the seasons, the diurnal rhythms of Consumption Functions at Haas

swing around again. Today it was one of the best! Diwali (or दीपावली, दिवाली, as if you didn't know) is the Hindu/Sikh Festival of Lights, and so the school celebrated with henna tattoos, singing, dancing, and lots of delicious food. The chicken tikka masala, saag paneer and aloo gobi are the closest I've had to proper British cuisine since getting here.

Hannah Singer with angel face paint - incongruous.

Proper food.

Entertainment!

Venturing into the unknown

Hang around a business school long enough and you'll eventually be drawn into one of the many student start-ups that propagate around here like weeds. Some of them are crazy, some of them are doomed, but one or two are genuinely interesting and might have a chance of success.

And so it was that, a few weeks ago, I found myself drawn into an unfamiliar world of financial planning, business models, and actually having to do something after getting out of bed in the morning.

Elad had a clever idea over the summer that e-book readers (like Amazon's Kindle), while nice, have no interactive content for users. You can pay lots of money to subscribe to an electronic version of the New York Times, but you can't do their crossword, Sudoku, or anything fun. That's a problem. It's also a gap in the market.

So the brightest and best programmers he could find (me and Dana - he didn't look too hard) got together and actually managed to make his idea work. No one was more shocked than us. And today we got to enter a competition to win money, mentoring, world-conquering powers, and fame and fortune. Results are due tomorrow, but seeing Elad up on stage made me wonder whether he shouldn't drop this Haas rubbish and become an evangelical preacher. I, for one, was sold.

Signing in.

Look! We get trendy badges with our team name on! One team of four even dressed all the same, which I thought was a little much.

Elad in full flow. And there's a picture of me!

Yes, I've helped make something that actually works. Did you think I was just hanging out in California and surfing?