North Downs Way

Limpsfield → Otford

Distance: 11.0 miles
Ascent: 112 metres
Duration: 4 hours 1 minute

Along the top
« Not walked | Not walked »

While yesterday's walk involved three separate ascents of the Downs escarpment, today we started and remained on the top for almost the entire route: we only dropped down for the final two miles along roads between Chevening and Otford. Just before descending we saw the Downs as a ridge for the first time, with views dropping off simultaneously to the north and south.

This is a very affluent area. Over this weekend large gated houses set back in huge grounds adorned with security cameras, tall fences and (frankly unnecessary) signs that declare the land to be "PRIVATE" have been common. We've crossed many horse paddocks and been run off the narrow roads by Bentleys and Range Rovers.

But as we descended there were still some signs of traditional activity: fields of sheep, and straw tightly bound in round bales. I'm not sure what to make of last field we passed though: row upon row of neatly trimmed lavender bushes.

North Downs Way

Merstham → Limpsfield

Distance: 9.54 miles
Ascent: 362 metres
Duration: 3 hours 26 minutes

A hazy view
« Not walked | Not walked »

Down in the valley to our right we followed the route of the M25 for much of the day. We rarely caught sight of the road (except when we crossed it), but the rumble of its presence was a constant companion.

To the north a more breathtaking view appeared about half-way. There on the distant horizon were the masts at Crystal Palace, and beyond them we could just imagine the jagged shapes of the towers at Canary Wharf. A little work this evening teased them out of the grey photograph, along with the line of hills beyond which runs the northern side of the motorway.

We're staying with Mum tonight and she generously acted as chauffeur. We found her a mile or so short of the car park, sitting on a bench enjoying the late summer sun. It's been a lovely day to be out.

Comment , Tech

How FAC have been fooled

A pretty girl turned up to their meeting and in one night the Featured Artists Coalition transformed from being a group with pragmatic views on the modern world to a bunch of self-proclaimed technical experts who don't know what they're talking about.

Last night the FAC said that Internet users should have their bandwidth constrained if they "persistently download illegal files", and that such constraint would leave "email and web access functional".

If that's the case, presumably Lily Allen will volunteer to have her own line so limited in order to demonstrate that she can still happily email and surf. Do the FAC realise that such throttling would also impact legitimate media purchases, such as Amazon MP3 and iTunes? (Maybe they're not interested in converting "infringers" into music purchasers.)

Then there's the issue of who would be responsible for identifying infringing behaviour, how such infringements would be reliably and accurately communicated to the ISPs, how ISPs would implement the sanctions and what right of appeal users would have.

Last night's statement was a retrograde step, but at least it's better than the BPI McGuinness Geffen Mandleson plan.

Tech

Pigeons, packets and post

The other week most media outlets picked up on the story of Winston the Pigeon. This was clearly just a publicity coup ("coo-coo-coo").

The story was that a company in South Africa was so fed up with the speed of their broadband that they discovered it was faster to transfer data by carrier pigeon. The unwritten subtext was a comment on the state of broadband provision in South Africa.

But what happens if you run the numbers? Winston transferred 4 GBytes in two hours. That's equivalent to a sustained rate of 4.5 Mbit/s: hardly shabby, and nearly 1 Mbit/s higher than the average download throughput achieved by users in the UK.

It's even more remarkable if you assume that the constraint on broadband was the upload speed rather than the download speed. The "A" in "ADSL" stands for "asymmetric": the maximum rate at which you can send data is far less than the rate at which you can receive. So if you're sending data from one ADSL line to another it's not the headline "up to 8 Mbit/s download" rate that's limiting you; it's the maximum upload rate which for most people in the UK is a paltry 448 Kbit/s. At that rate it would take over twenty hours to transfer the full 4 GBytes.

So it's hardly a surprise the pigeon won.

What is worth observing is that twenty hour figure. It means that if you want to transfer over 4 GByte of data between any two points in the UK, no matter where they are it's probably quicker to move the data physically rather than electronically. (Now do you see why data CDs could get lost in the post?)

For the pigeon lovers out there, the Internet Engineering Task Force first described how to use "avian carriers" to extend the Internet back in 1990, although it took a further eleven years before this mechanism was demonstrated in practice.

Personal

In praise of the Orb

We've been really enjoying BBC Four's Scotland season these past few weeks and while the shows about Munro, the country's history and Glencoe have been interesting the absolute stand-out programme has been Tweed: a portrait of the Harris Tweed industry over the past couple of years.

I thoroughly recommend watching the three one-hour episodes but be warned: you'll come away shaking your head with dismay at a certain Yorkshireman, and determined to open your wallet in support of this unique fabric.

Harris Tweed looks set to make a come-back thanks to the eleventh Doctor so get in early. Just make sure you don't buy one of Haggas' Harris-woven and China-stitched jackets.

Coastwalk

Hamble-le-Rice → Warsash

Distance: 5.64 miles
Ascent: 34 metres
Duration: 1 hour 57 minutes

Two thousand
« Southampton | Gosport »

This month's coastwalk requires a drum-roll introduction. Under a glorious blue sky, the walk up and down the River Hamble (which I'd previously crossed by the gaudy pink ferry) climaxed with my two thousandth mile of coast.

I've been a little slower on this second chunk - five years and six months, rather than the five years and one month I took to complete my first thousand.

So beside the wonderfully named "Bunny Meadows" Emma reached down and prised a small stone from the gravel path. It will join the lump of ballast I collected at Grange on my desk. Two stones down, five to go.

Personal

Keep calm

We may live close to the Heathrow flight path, but tonight's sight was more than a little surprising. For half an hour, three jet aircraft flew low above us, circling in tight formation.

They appear to have been part of the Royal Flight, operating out of Northwood (home of the "NO" navigation hint). Why they were so low, and why they circled five or six times isn't clear. But at least next time I'll know it's nothing to be concerned about. (Which wasn't the first thing that came to mind today.)

Greenbelt , Tech

Festival Guide v1.1.1

If you bought the Greenbelt Festival Guide iPhone App, you may recently have been offered a free update to version 1.1.1. I suggest you take it.

This is the version I'd hoped to have available during the festival. It fixes the three big bugs which we knew about at the time; it also brings a glamorous new look to many pages with events coloured according to their genre. (The image on the right compares the old and the new.)

Unfortunately I didn't manage to complete this in time to get it approved before the event, but if you download it you'll have a sneak preview of what's in store for next year's app.

I'd love to hear any other ideas for next year; please leave a comment if there's a feature missing which you just can't live without.

Greenbelt

A full festival

One of the lovely side-effects of writing the Festival Guide app is that it's easy to see the entire festival programme at a glance. So what did Greenbelt 2009 look like? In numbers there were 718 events by 408 artists across 66 venues.

The above chart shows time running from left to right (Friday on the left, Monday on the right). Each festival venues has its own row; events are shown as boxes coloured according to their genre: worship is green, music is red, talks and workshops are teal. (That little gap near the start of the third day is all venues shutting down during the Sunday Morning Service.)

No single picture can get across the breadth and depth of the Greenbelt programme, but I reckon this comes closer than most.

Film

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Another year, another instalment.

This time though something's different. To me at least it seemed that the visual impact of the sixth Harry Potter film has stepped up considerably. From the very start long seamless sweeping shots took my breath away as did the Western Highland scenery.

After ninety minutes I was fidgeting. As with the books it's not that I wasn't enjoying myself, but I wanted to get to the end. Unlike the books though there are now two further episodes to go. I'm hoping the film makers keep each to a sensible length.

Visual Arts

Not standing

Amidst the bustle of the festival I'd almost forgotten I'd be getting an email today.

Subject: One and Other: Not chosen this time...
Date: 1 September 2009 00:12:38 GMT+01:00
To: Paul Bennett

We have now picked the winners of places in October and we are sorry to tell you that you have not been picked on this occasion.

So that's that then. I'll not spend time on the pinth.

While the press has focussed on the zanier side of plinth dwellers, I'm looking forward to seeing the artwork which results from the past three months. With hindsight will One & Other have succeeded in showcasing a representative cross-section of British society or will it just have been a platform for failed Big Brother contestants?

Thankfully I won't be judged with the rest.