James’s posterous

James’s posterous

James Evans  //  It's just somewhere to post stuff that I find interesting - if you don't like it, feel free not to read it. Hang around here and you may learn the secrets of life, the universe and everything (but I wouldn't bet on it).

Aug 21 / 10:23am

Busy airport. Or not.

Tallinn airport never gets as busy as, say, Gatwick, but this morning it was ridiculously empty and I made it from taxi to poisonous cafe in about four minutes. At security the staff outnumbered passengers five to one (I checked, twice). There were so few customers in the bookshop that the sales assistant was asleep at the checkout (I'm not making this up). Will things be better in Riga?
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Aug 21 / 10:22am

Basic food error at Tallinn Airport

Breakfast at an airport isn't too much to ask, is it? Or maybe it is if you're at Tallinn Airport hoping for something recognisable. I ended up with the chicken wrap (cheese pastries didn't appeal) on the assumption that it would be tricky to get wrong; bad mistake. Gherkins and olives did not sit well with me, and I'm now feeling a bit I'll. And I'm still hungry.

 Food on the flight? Nope. Air Baltic don't even sell crisps on their short hops. If I can't get anything in Riga I'll have to hope for something edible on the flight to London and if that doesn't happen it's another three hours to Marks & Spencers at Gatwick. I expect them to be closed by the time I get there.

 And they told me international air travel was glamourous!

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Aug 19 / 12:37pm

Air Baltic - Kings of in-flight catering

It's only a short flight, 55 minutes, so surely there's nothing I can write about before landing? You remember that coffee I didn't get at Riga airport? I looked to the in-flight drinks trolley for a quick restorative, carrying black gold to the sorely deprived (or so they boasted). The modest splash of lukewarm and foul-tasting water served at the bottom of a nasty plastic beaker wasn't quite what I'd hoped for, being very close to the worst cup of coffee I've ever had. Next time I'll know to ignore the Siren call of the coffee babes, perhaps stopping my ears with headphones or lightly-masticated boarding passes, resisting the urge to feed my caffeine habit until it's actually safe to imbibe.

 No more sustenance till we land. Tallinn ho!

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Aug 19 / 12:37pm

Riga airport - wow!

I hadn't expected to be long at Riga airport but I thought I'd have time to check my email and grab a coffee before boarding the flight to Tallinn. As it turned out, I barely had time to answer a pressing call of nature before they started calling me to the gate. At least, I think that's what they were doing; if they wanted me to go to lost property then I'm acrid they'll be waiting a long time because all I heard was my name in a stream of foreign, and it was all I could do successfully to navigate the labyrinthine corridors of RIX.

 I made the flight, last person through the gate. On a really small plane now. Gulp.

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Aug 19 / 2:42am

London to Tallinn, via Riga, in less than a day!

I'm on the move again, this time from London to Tallinn, via Riga (there used to be a direct flight but Estonia's economic problems seem to have done for it). I haven't flown this route before - can you feel the excitement? - but I'm not expecting anything mind-blowing.

Many people ask me how I stand the pace of my international jetset life and I have to tell them that, sometimes, it can be tough. Right now, for example, I'm on the Gatwick Express which isn't too bad and doesn't really smell; tomorrow I may have to use the trams in Tallinn, which offer a rather more complete , and they're often rather less wholesomely fragrant. 

And the parties? Don't talk to me about parties! On this trip, in addition to all the usual business-type stuff, I'm expecting a grandstand seat at tomorrow evening's city centre riots, held to celebrate the completion of the new war memorial in the centre of town. More news as it happens.
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Aug 18 / 1:02pm

Tomtom finally hits the iphone - The Inquirer

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING, but the wait is now over. The much-anticipated hook-up between satnav giant TomTom and Apple's iconic Iphone has finally come to fruition.
via theinquirer.net

It's a fairly brief review, but The Inquirer seemed to like Tomtom for the iPhone. If I didn't have a standalone Tomtom unit I'd be tempted to splash out but, for the moment, I'll stick with my Go 520. After all, if I'm using my phone to navigate me while I drive, I can't watch TV programmes on it, and that's a sacrifice too far!

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Aug 18 / 12:48pm

Internet ads do work. Probably.

They found that "online ad campaigns with an average reach of 40 percent of their target segment successfully grew retail sales of the advertised brands by an average of 9 percent" and, we assume, also made a lot of people very hungry.
via theinquirer.net

This is probably good news for anyone selling ad-serving services (www.betgenius.com, for example) but, dammit, it probably means we're all going to be subjected to ever greater numbers of online adverts.

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Aug 16 / 11:56pm

Legroom, South West Trains

Over the weekend I complained about the lack of legroom on First Great Western's trains because I had only an inch between my knees and the back of the seat in front. This morning I'm on SWT and legroom is about six inches; much more comfortable.
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Aug 16 / 4:55am

Civilization for the iPhone

It's been a very long time coming, but I now have a version of Civilization that works on my phone. Is it the first mobile Civ? I'm not sure, to be honest, and I don't really care; it works, it delivers the core of the traditional Civ product and it's easily playable on an iPhone touch-screen.

 But what exactly is it? Is it the boardgame, a port of one of the PC games, or something else entirely? The answer is that it's a bit of everything, borrowing features from a number of sources and replacing many of the micro-management tasks (road-building, for example) with alternatives well-suited to the mobile format.

 In terms of style it most closely resembles the original Civ, favouring a flat map instead of the pseudo-3D maps found in later versions. Gameplay is simple, especially compared to Civs 3 and 4, and the graphics have also been slimmed down and, it has to be said, given a slightly comic feel.

 Does it work? Yes, pretty much. The first couple of difficulty levels won't challenge anyone, moving units a long way over large maps is a bit of a pain and some of the animations are a bit jerky, but there's something hugely satisfying about watching your first tank army roll towards, and then over, your enemy's archers.

 Worth trying? Yes, and at £2.99 it's the best value Civ ever. Bring on the Barbarians!

         
Click here to download:
Civilization_for_the_iPhone.zip (412 KB)

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Aug 16 / 3:53am

Train, headsets and railway tunnels

I'm still on the train from Cardiff to Southampton (at the time of writing I've just passed Bradford-on-Avon) and it looks like my headset is failing; the cable to my left earpiece has broken and is now working only intermittently. This does not improve the stereo imaging.

 What does this have to do with railway tunnels? Nothing, absolutely nothing at all. I only mention them because I've been through several fairly long ones this morning and there's something vaguely interesting about watching the light reflected from the rails dim as you enter the tunnel, disappear completely in the middle, and then return as the train is spat back into the daylight.

 Vaguely interesting? That might be over-egging the pudding, but this is a monumentally dull journey and I can't even listen to my iPod to lighten the boredom so I'm forced to write this drivel just so that I have something to do.

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