Back in the UK and more on Thor

I wrote this last week and never posted it.
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I'm back in London and feeling slightly more grounded. As I mentioned in my last posts Tripoli was a surprise; picturesque and pleasant.

Getting back to the UK was a bit of a strain. As we entered the gate at Tripoli International Airport (TIP, for those of you collecting airport call letters) my British seatmate - flying back from six months at an oil field-- informed me that "we had no idea where we were going." After a perplexing moment I replied that I was going to London and hoped the plane we just boarded was headed that way as well. He then told me there had been an 'incident" at Heathrow and runways were closed.

Now, when a British person uses the word "incident" I try to remain calm. They are a remarkably understated group and it could mean anything from a neutron bomb detonation to a taxi cab run amok. Turned out to be an amazing save by a pilot who landed an 777 with no power by gliding (!!) it down. Virtually no injuries -- an amazing story.

Lots of emails flying back and forth between my friends from college; spurred by the death of our friend Thor. Since he was peripatetic, his friends from around the world have built a memorial site. I found this very strange in the beginning, slightly unseemly, which is odd if you think about it since I write to all my friends through an open blog. Ultimately, I have found the site quite comforting because it allows me to remember with a lot of others the hysterical life and death of Thor, the God of Thunder. Best of all there is a collection of his yearly letters which show you how funny and witty he really was.

I spent Sunday rooting around in my flat looking for photos from the mid 1980s when most of the Emory crew were still in Atlanta and found an great set of negatives from when I was taking black and white photos. The picture above is Thor posing for me. I don't remember subjecting my friends to this but apparently I did because there were a ton of black and white negatives from then.

I'm headed to Paris...

At the end February, I'm finally taking the super duper fast and speedy train to Paris from the snazzy newly renovated St. Pancras Train terminalwith some friends. We are staying for a couple of days; I'm just telling you so you can get all set up for great pictures. Maybe we will run into Sarkozy and his squeeze who are being endlessly written about in the British press. Who knows - it could happen. Chances are what you really have to look forward to is the usual funny signs and possibly a picturesque cafe scene...

Sportswear for modest women

Becasue all the signs are in arabic I cam only take pictures of scenery. This display shows a remarkable adaptation of the "mall suit" or sweatsuit. I suppose its sportswear for modest women.

BY the way headscarves are very prominent here in Triploi along with generally demure women's clothing. But chadors or other full body covering has been a very rare sight.

Libyan plumbing

I have a long standing beef with British plumbing specifically the ridiculous habit they have of two taps in the bathroom - so that washing your hands is a freezing or scalding experince.

This picture shows Libyan plumbing is much better. Who knew a country coming out of exile could learn so much quickly that the world's seventh largest economy.

This is Tripoli in January

I'm in the Libyan capital on business. I was gentily approaching this trip for a variety of reasons, mostly it took sooooo long to get a visa and it was difficult to arrange a hotel. But things opened up considerably overthe lastcouple of months or my companies in-country group got better at figuring out how to book rooms. Regardless, I have been pleasantly surprised by Tripoli.

As usual most of my trip is spent in conference rooms and hotels so there's little time to explore. Yesterday, I did get out for a walk for lunch. This is the view in the regular neighborhood. Not bad, eh? Well the weather is much better than in London at this moment, so that's a plus. The infrastructure is really hurting for a variety of reasons: lack of cash from embargo, insufficent planning and god knows what else. The people I've met have been really great, eager to help sort me out and very friendly. So I guess the jury is out but I encourage a visit. Did I mention the whole country is dry? no alcohol, none, nada.

Terrible news

An old Emory friend was killed yesterday in Afghanistan. Thor Hesler was killed when Taliban rushed into an expat heavy hotel with grenades and guns. Its very odd to think he's gone. I got an email from a friend in the US yesterday while they were still saying "an American" had been killed. I wrote back to my friend asking if it could possibly be a mistake. The answer is no, Thor was that American.

Thor had been in hot spots all around the world and spinning tales of his travels in yearly letters to his friends. December's missive was as usual great reading.

Not much you can say when someone dies like this; but its on my mind and I'm far away from home so I wrote it down.

New Haven as an example

First, let me say that I love having this new Mac. It means that I can finally get some speed out of my home Internet pipe, so there's lots more surfing going on. Now if I could just figure out how to get all my old files transferred I would be golden but that requires that I sit down and RTFM since the easy way has had a hiccup.

Any way that's not why I'm writing I'm writing this post because I've been thinking about infrastructure (can you imagine how dull my life must be?) and then today I read this marvelous article in NYT on Public vs. Private infrastructure. It sure isn't pretty but basic infrastructure is what makes cities great and every city I have lived in has a crumbling infrastructure. Atlanta's water system, San Francisco's schools and roads, when I left Tampa it was so busy growing that the infrastructure hadn't caught up yet. Sort of makes you long for early to mid 20th century when civil engineering was kind and social infrastructure got nothing...

Here in London, I'm still having trouble understanding how these things are funded. They don't have bonding as I know it from the US - central government shares our revenue to local authorities who get work done (or not). They have privatised everything so its a very strange quagmire. As fully realised in this week's cock-up concerning net work rails in ability to get the line work finished on time to re-open Liverpool Street Station. They seem to have split up the companies which maintain and deliver the rail lines from the companies which run the trains. No overhead wire engineers available over the holidays so no line from Rugby to Liverpool Street. Good thing no body was at work last week!

Anyway back to infrastructure, I suppose it was always this - before it was privatised the service was crap, now its privatised the service is slightly better than crap but the infrastructure is weak and failing.

As and aside, despite all the great papers here I miss my Sunday morning coffee and NYT ritual, either in the sunny spot in front of my place in Dogpatch with my neighbour's or in Henry's back yard.

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Mum!