I guess it’s high time I updated this poor, unloved blog. I have removed the last petty post, it was not really worth it after all. Nothing spectacular as been going on lately, but here’s what I’ve been doing.

It’s been sometime now, but I’ve finished the second tome of Locke Lamora, so I can send it to anyone wishing to read it. It’s not required, but I’d advise you to read the first one before.

Antoine has come to visit me twice in the last month, and last Friday we’ve been to to a concert by the Diablo Swing Orchestra. Yeah, it’s metal, but with a latin/gypsy touch brought by two awesome guys playing the cello and the trumpet. If you’re not afraid of “unconventional” music, definitely check it out. Remaining true to myself, I’ve lost my tickets on the way there, so we had to buy new ones on the door. Sorry again Antoine ;( However, the concert was great, and really worth it. Still interested ? Check my first and only ToiTuyau video!! It was shot with my über digital camera, so the quality is not exactly great, bear with me :)

Finally, I’ll be moving this summer to Wilson House, a little north of Hyde Park. That will be a single room, so come to me people :p

Another quick, silly post that I could have avoided, my apologies :D
Yesterday I’ve bought some nice, promising cheese. In fact, Camembert made from unpasteurized milk, something rare enough to buy, I think. But I had to wait until this evening to have some bread done. Once ready, I opened the box, and the inner plastic foil was (and still is) printed in French (uh!). It explains when to eat it, in days before “use by” date, depending on how mature you like it. The next, natural step was to look at this famous date: February, 24, 2010. Almost one month ago. Great, I like my cheese “bien fait” ! I hope I won’t get sick though ;) And yes, I bought it only yesterday.

Cheese !

By the way, the bread is the best I ever made, considering the size of bubbles inside the crumb, yeepee !

Good morning everyone, this is just a quick post about the Ig Nobels Show that I attended last Thursday. For those who don’t know about it, the Ig Nobel (pronounce as “ignoble”, not eye-djee as the spelling may imply) rewards research that is funny at first sight, although serious and sometimes, chance bearing. Among last year’s picks were Catherine Douglas who proved that cows with names give more milk; and the Irish police, for writing about 50 traffic tickets to someone named “Prawo Jazdy”

Here are a few bad, blurry photos of the guy who like to swallow all things (really) sharp.

And to finish with this, I’d like to thank Antoine, without whom I wouldn’t have been there, for the total lack of advertisement for the event.

All right folks, this is gonna be THE moultipost which is, some say, the ancestor of MULTIPASS ! (or maybe it’s the other way round…) That’s loads of (un)news coming your way !

First, I know this is my first post since weeeeeks, and I won’t apologize for it, having no excuse apart from being exceptionally lazy (but you should know that by now.) And I haven’t done anything interesting anyway…

But but but but ! Second things second, on Friday evening there was a concert given by the Imperial College Symphony Orchestra. The first two piece were Huapango by Moncayo, which I didn’t really appreciate, as well as the first movement of Beethoven’s second Piano Concerto which followed. The 2nd and 3rd movements where nice, I won’t elaborate on that, but it almost felt like a completely different piece. But your uneducated lazy (ex-)blogger did not lose his evening because the last performance was The Planets, by Gustav Holst, which was alien to me. I find this one grand and magnificent, and it was performed quite well ! In fact, I liked it so much that I stole one poster of the concert (mean MEAN me !). And I’m still in love with the oboe, although I greatly prefer the French word for it.

Next is … elections ? Yep, we completely failed to weed Jean-Marie from PACA, even though his score was a bit lower than from the last regional elections. With more than 20%, our behated national bulldog has given the ‘Front National’ the best score in France. Considering that the main right party has slowly drifted rightward in the last couple of years, this is not something to celebrate, I dare say. Maybe I should beat my sister and brother to death for not having voted ? Well maybe not, they might be useful in future, more important elections :D Anyhow, there’s a positive side: my department, ‘les Hautes-Alpes’ (cocorrico) is the only one in PACA to have pushed the FN out of the 3 leading parties. So anyone thinking that the ‘crétin des alpes’ is indeed a cretin and friend with far-right is WRONG (in some way.)

Now I certainly need to show off about my culinary skills since the week-end, after a long walk (see below), I managed to successfully make a nice crème anglaise and coconut macaroons (sort of), for the first time (!). The crème was too sweet, nonetheless very good. [Extra clumsiness coming] The last of the Mohicans macaroons is alone in its big plate, looking sadly at me, and I might heed its call and relieve it from its pain before I’m done writing.

As mentioned above, Sunday was my day out, and I went to the (relatively) huuuuuuge Richmond Park in south-west London. Nothing fancy out there, apart from some ducks and deer —I do not dare say wild— but to walk for about 3 hours in a somewhat nice and quiet place. And I also highly enjoyed being able to see further than 50m away. I also made friends, but sadly some clouds wanted some love too, not really grasping the situation, and making it worse, as you can see on the photos.

This post is a bit foolosh but not quite enough, so here it is, Starcraft 2 Beta is out ! yoohoo ! Yeah Ok I’m like 3 weeks late, but that’s not really important, because it is here ! Annnnd no I (still) no not have a key, so maybe I won’t fail my exams. But that’s a shame ! Who cares about exams now ? I’ve had way too many already ! Can’t be bad if I fail once, is it ? Anyhow I can’t really play for now although I’m pretty sure someone will try to prove me wrong in the commentaries; so I’m trying to work while I still can.

Speaking of work, that’s how I will end this post, sadly for me, but hopefully not for you ! Its pretty sure now —although not certain— that I will stay in London for my final year internship. This means no flying back home in April, so if someone wants a guide in London, I should be here :)

See you around guys !

A very short post to tell you that the 360° view of Greenwich is available. That’s silly, but I’ve noticed that for some reason, the right wall is much dirtier that the left one…

First of all I must say that I am aware that this ‘word of the week’ series is slowly drifting towards a ‘word of the month’, maybe ‘of the year’ soon, up to the oblivion. I’ll try to catch up :)

Anyway… lately I was navigating the seas of the Great Web, trying not to get caught by too many of Wikipedia’s tentacles. I’ve found that I was a bit of an ‘apatheist‘ (no, not this one). I’ve also found that this word is a ‘portmanteau’. What the hell is that ? Some French people including me might think ‘What the bloody hell is that ? Well, as you will discover here, it means that ‘apatheist’ carries several other words within itself, like a suitcase. Because that what it is. Portmanteau = Coat (Manteau) + Carrier (Port, in French). The English word –portmanteau– means suitcase. The only, slight problem is that portemanteau doesn’t quite mean suitcase, but coat hanger… Translation fail, once again.

By the way, I’m getting my Mac back tomorrow first light!

Another week has passed, already 2 since the beginning of the term…

And so I’ve been to Cambridge yesterday, where the Centre for Analysis (CCA) held its Open Day. It’s a new PhD program –the first batch of students will be admited in October 2010– which will be focused exactly on the subjects I like, i.e. PDEs and computational analysis. The guys in charge of this thing seem great, with lots of ideas!
The place looks like this:

The odd buildings, although they look like the ones used for malting barley, are supposed to produce ideas, not whisky… but you never know.
Oh… and as the building on the right is burried in the ground, these facilities are burried in the outskirts of Cambridge, so I walk/ran/swam in search for it, for about 40 minutes, under the (not that light) rain.

Today I’ve been around Greenwich, which (uh) is a pretty nice place, only a couple of kilometers from the City, and it is completely different. Every thing is large, but flat, unpacked, breathable and quiet. There’s a nice maritime museum there, with a huge propeller spinning slowly overhead somewhere. The observatory is on a small hill and offers a nice view of the City.

Greenwhich University

And finally, things are getting a little better on the geeky side:

So I’ve been back to London for about a week now, and nothing really interesting has happened yet. I’ve started my new courses, and sadly too many of them are appealing, so I had to cross a few out. What a shame…

So nothing interesting has happened, but that does not mean that nothing has happened. Very UNinteresting things happen sometimes. Like a laptop screen going on strike, and that’s exactly what MINE is doing right now, so I’m writing from one of the uni’s public PC.

But after all, that’s life…

This has nothing to do with the rest, but I’ve found this thing which reminds me home, and might please someone I know :)

Found here.
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One extra post to share my worries about this week-end: it has just started snowing steadily here, and heavier snow showers are forecast for Friday. And as I was told yesterday at Amnesty social, a bit of snow can be a hell of a mess. Note that this is only about 10cm high!