(What is forced fiction?)

THIS STORY SAYS: BRB TWO MONTHS MAYBE.

A quick explanation in advance of future posts.

The concept of forced fiction is well known and popular, but I've never heard it called that before.  I think it's an appropriate name.  Normally I write because I have an idea.  When I don't have many ideas, or I'm preoccupied with other things, I go for enormous stretches of time without a word of fiction leaving my pen.  Recent events have made me realise that there exists an upward spiral; writing often both improves the quality of prose, and the frequency of ideas generated.  But ideas from nowhere are a blessing, and not to be taken for granted.

Thus, forced fiction.  A minimum of every two days, if I haven't written anything idea-based, I will generate five random words using this, for example, and not move until I've written a piece of flash (or longer, if the mood takes me) containing them all.

And in a crazy and unforeseen turn of events, I'm going to post them on here.  Unless I really like them, then I'm going to keep them to myself.

So now you know.

We got up early on the final morning with the intention of cramming as much of Cairo in before our flight as possible. No-one would take us to Tahrir Square, and the Metro wasn't running. Taxis claimed to drop us off at the famous market, but we struggled to find anything much... We wandered many backstreets, and concluded that it was just early (for Ramadan) and everyone was probably not quite up yet. Cairo streets are covered in gunk and litter and smelly things, and they're tight and winding. I love them. The high walls and narrow paths created an effect the closest to being hugged by a city I have ever felt.

We visited a couple of churches that we were ushered into by locals, before stumbling across the Mohammed Ali Sibel and learnt about its history. We climbed down a ten metre shaft too, and wandered around in the dark beneath the building. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Heather and I had to head back for midday, and we enjoyed a whirlwind taxi ride. Our driver stopped to ask directions from pizza delivery boys, other taxis, policemen, passers by... We saw a huge amount of the city in the hour it took us to find the hotel, with criss-crossing, elevated main roads providing the perfect viewing platform.

Cairo has perhaps the best cityscape I have ever seen. Sprawling and uneven and huge. Bright colours, haphazard shapes, buildings that are jostling for attention. Windows that churn out flapping bedsheets, streamers of electrical wires; low roofs beside high walls, supporting slouching heaps of sand, bricks and mud. The feeling that everything is always moving and the overriding sensation that something is always happening in your peripherals.

Needless to say, a half day was not enough. I will be back.

Our predicted hour-and-a-half journey to the aiport took barely half an hour. Free wifi at Cairo International could sure teach Heathrow a thing or two... The airport was near enough a ghost town during the late afternoon. Staff were laid back and friendly, and most of the queues we stood in were probably unnecessary. I walked the wrong way down a conveyor. I had THE BEST TIME. One lifetime ambition fulfilled.

The flight, which left a bit after 5pm, was uneventful and we landed at 2125 in Heathrow, to 15 degrees, or what the pilot described as 'a standard British summer evening'.

I am counting down to my next adventure.

It's not planned yet. Donations welcome. Watch this space.

We had plenty of space on the train; big seats and air conditioning. I was woken often by jolting starts and slamming doors, but all in all it wasn't too bad.

Carrying all of our stuff, we stumbled out of the station and onto a minibus in Giza. Dave left us in the hands of a new guide, who was distinctly more interested in getting us to the pyramids than letting us eat or use the loo. We comprimised with pastries and juice from a fuel station shop and recovered enough to be on our way.

We wandered around the pyramids, and then the Sphinx. Underwhelming, all things considered, and the Valley of the Kings is far more impressive. Also, definitely aliens.

Most people did the cheesy holding-the-pyramids photo thing. I took pictures from the wrong angles of people posing these. This is far more entertaining.

We had streetside falafel for lunch before visiting the enormous Egyptian Museum. There's
some cool stuff in here, again with the giant walls of heiroglyphics, and I lost everyone
else for a while.

We were dropped at the Havannah Hotel. We thought there must be some mistake. This place was SHINY. Huge rooms, clean, functioning bathroom facilities... (for about £10pppn) A classy end to the trip. I passed out for a couple of hours before we all met downstairs again at 6. The place Dave wanted to take us for dinner was absolutely packed, but we were directed to another restaurant a few doors down who promised to serve us food from the first place. Interesting business technique, but it did the job. I had the vegetarian version of f.... I can't remember what it was called but it definitely began with f. Might have been fattah. Someone help me out please, the Internet isn't doing yet. It was an extremely filling rice yogurty dish with fried flat bread and peas in it. Suuuper tasty, and almost equal to kushari. The non-vegetarian versions had liberal amounts of shredded beef or chicken on top.

After hanging out at the hotel for a bit, thus concluded the final night in Egypt.

Our felucca was a small boat covered in a foam matress, a few cushions and little else. There was a cabin at the front for the guys who were both sailing the thing, and cooking our food.

Thus, we lounged around.

That is all.

The toilet was amongst riverbank bushes, and the shower was the Nile. The Nile is exceptionally refreshing, by the way. We moored for breakfast, lunch and dinner; local food, prepared and cooked by the felucca crew, was among the best we'd had on the trip.

Lounging, for those wanting more detail, consisted of reading, writing, sleeping, playing cards, listening to music, sleeping, reading, playing cards and sleeping. This challenging routine was broken up by jumping into the Nile and holding onto a rope that trailed behind the boat. Then climbing back onto the boat to dry off in the sun and resume the lounging.

The morning after the second night on the felucca, we had arrived about an hour's drive away from Aswan. Nev picked us up with the truck, and we drove all the way back to Luxor. En route, we stopped at Edfu Temple for an hour. This quickly ranked as my favourite one. It was huge, plenty of places to get lost in, and enormous walls covered in heiroglyphics.

After lunch in Luxor, we spent a few hours at Rezeiky Camp (where we stayed previously) thoroughly cleaning the truck. When that was done we headed into town for dinner - more kushari! Without getting lost, this time.

Back at the camp we jumped in the pool for a bit (the pool which is distinctly more of a funny colour than the Nile, and into which you cannot see further than a few inches). we cleaned up, packed everything, and headed to Luxor train station, saying goodbye to Nev and the truck for the last time.

An hour later than scheduled, the eight-hour overnight train journey commenced.

We were all excited by massive the lie in we got for a 9am start that morning. We saw Philae Temple, with Hatshepsut's cool obelisk. Another place where those darn Christians ruined a lot of carvings.

After lunch on the waterfront, I slept for a few hours. It was good.

We regrouped at 4 and took a boat to a beach on Elephantine Island. Took a dip in the Nile and survived. It's clean and clear around Aswan, contrary to popular rumour. We had a tour of a family home in the Nubian village, and Mona, lady of the house, cooked us a fantastic dinner. The houses are made of mud brick, but painted brightly and strategically in yellows, blues and greens to maximise heat and light potential year round. The house we saw was also enormous, even for a family of five. During the summer months, they all sleep on the roof, but there are an excess of indoor bedrooms for guests, and two huge reception areas. In the village, there are no locks on doors, and the sense of community is such that friends can wander in and out of each others' homes at leisure. While we were there we had a few drop-ins from neighbors and local kids, including a woman who henna'd up everyone except me. Even Al got a hardcore eye-pyramid thing on his arm. Manly :)

An enjoyable and stress free day, in preparation for the next few days of uber-chilling on a felucca...

SOMEONE* ordered a wakeup call for everyone without telling us. At 4am, a phone you don't recognise ringing next to your head from a table of all of your charging electricals is one of the most confusing phenomena known to man.

*It was Dave.

We drove three hours to Abu Simbel and marvelled at giant representations of Ramses II and his cohorts. The whole lot had been moved to save it from the rising Nile a few decades ago, which is pretty impressive. At quarter to ten we regrouped to join the return convoy (they don't trust tourists driving alone in the desert).

Lunch was even shadier than last night's dinner. There was no written menu so the guy reeled off what he had. Not feeling particularly hungry, Kathryn and I ordered spinach soup. It had the texture of dried spinach, herbs and garlic in oil. Our resident professional chef (Al, for those of you not keeping up) whisked it for a bit and concluded it was egg white. It tasted sort of okay with bread dipped in. But I wouldn't recommend it.

At 4, a local gave us a tour of Elephantine Island. The place is so chilled out. There is an enormous sense of community and 'the simple life' amoung the Nubian people.

After dinner on the waterfront we went for an aimless wander that turned into getting lost in the winding streets of Aswan. It was nice to see some entirely tourist free areas, but we were also knackered. Eventual collapse at the hotel.

We started our day at 4am by catching a hot air balloon from the other side of the Nile. On the boat across, we were unexpectadly supplied with coffee and Twinkys. We shared the balloon with Japanese tourists and a pilot with a sense of humour. I hadn't expected the fire part of the balloon to be so close to our heads, nor so loud.

The wind took us away from the Valley of the Kings and across the Nile. We upped and downed a bit, with the pilot explaining that flying close to things (the Nile, tops of trees...) is more fun. We saw the sunrise, and lots of Luxor from above. We almost landed in someone's field but a disgruntled looking chap on a donkey waved us away. So we landed in the next field, with a ground crew of local kids, who had been chasing the balloon's progress for the past ten minutes. The pilot warned us not to tip the kids or we'd have to pay them all, and to keep hold of our bags. We stayed in the basket whilst the balloon was haphazardly bundled away before traipsing through mud to the waiting minibus. An experience of a lifetime. I got some cool photos.

Back at the hotel we slept for an hour before digging in to the remaining birthday cake and heading out to Karnak Temple by horse and carriage. Karnak is huuuuge. Afterwards we went back to bed again before lunch.

Al and I set out on a hunt for the kushari shop, which should have been a couple of minutes walk from where everyone else went for lunch. En route we encountered a young man desperate to sell his shoe cleaning services to Al, who had jut stepped in something disgusting. This proved to be at a crucial point in the journey as the distraction meant we missed the turning we were looking for. Next we met the infamous Christian Mike, a toothless carriage driver wwho misdirected us and we walked for a further forty minutes or so into a distinctly tourist free area. Fortunately we didn't get charged for this pleasure.

Eventually we circled back and found an enormous tourist information centre. The friendly staff directed us around the corner where finally! Kushari. A big takeaway tub for 10LE. That's about a quid. As expected, finding our way back to the cafe where the girls' were took two minutes and we all returned to the truck.

Cue: four hour drive to Aswan.

We checked into the Orchida St George Hotel, where they welcomed us with cold karkarde. Score.

That evening we ventured into Aswan town. The tourist stuff is mixed in with the locals' stuff and veryone is much more laid back. We still got about the smae number of 'hello!', 'where from?', 'welcome!', 'spice girls!', and Al got plenty of 'lucky man, five wives!', but people seemed marginally less desperate to sell us things.

We did struggle to find somewhere to eat though. Eventually we went into a dogy looking cafe which we decided was definitely a front for a secret mafia related organisation. It was run by a stoney-faced fellow who didn't seem as thrilld about having customers as other places have been. The food arrived incredibly fast and there was definitely evidence of it being fetched from down the street. It was hella cheap too though, and by the end the guy running the joint seemed to have cheered up. Out of nowhere his mate arrived with something sweet on a fork and inserted it into Lizzie's mouth. He had a small selection of apparently complimentary sweet coconutty things which he insisted we finish off. They were tasty.

And thus ended the longest birthday ever. I was starting to get depressed about the impending end to the trip, especially with all of the UK riots news that was trickling through. Everyone we had encountered in Egypt was friendly and welcoming, providing contrast to what at the time felt like the country full of thugs to which I belonged. But let's not dwell. We went to bed early for yet another 4am wake up.

A 6am start for the Valley of the Kings, where a ticket allows entry to three tombs. We saw those of Ramses third, fifth, and ninth. Pro tip: EVERYTHING is half price with an international NUS card.

The quality of the preserved colours and carvings in the tomb is stunning, especially upon remembering that they are thousands of years old. Colours in the tombs in the Valley of the Workers were even more intense - the workers had one day off a month to work on their own family tombs, and put much more effort into the art.

After napping for a couple of hours we regrouped for lunch at a cafe in town. My growing karkade addiction (did I mention this yet?) was satisfied and more shopping commenced. We spent a while in a no-haggle statue shop and learnt how to tell machine- or Chinese-made from handcrafted Egyptian wares, as well as getting a demo on holding a naked flame to the black statues to prove they are plastic and not the stone they are sold as on the street. We hung out in the jewellers again, and were given more karkade. I then bought a ton of dried hibiscus so I can make my own every day for the next year.

Later that afternoon, H, Lizzie and I joined Dave on a visit to the SunShine Orphanage, a charity sponsored by Oasis. Wewere covered in adorable drooling toddlers for a couple of hours before our return.

We all ate dinner at a restaurant overlooking the Nile. At the end of the meal, an enormous chocolate cream birthday cake appeared bearing the message 'HAPPY BIRTDAY AMY' (sic). Thanks everyone! The best surprise. We ate about a third of it then stored it in the hotel's freezer.

To bed ready for an exciting 4am start...

After our sandy night, we had another drive day. We were all pretty grimy. We spent a majority of this journey learning interesting and enthralling 'facts' from a quiz book we found on the truck. This consumed hours.

We stopped for lunch and supplies at La Senza Mall; made up for some great purchases at a super cheap Carrefour by spending the same amount on a single coffee at an overpriced chain. Totally worth it.

We arrived at Rezieky Camp in Luxor late afternoon. First things first, we all upgraded to hotel rooms instead of the campsite. Secondly, we got in the swimming pool. Slightly disturbing that we couldn't see deeper than a few inches into the cloudy water, but we were all so filthy ourselves we were well beyond caring. After showering and cleaning up properly, Dave took us into town.

Luxor may be the hassle capital of Egypt (reserving judgement on Cairo for now). In a jewellers shop, the owner of which was known to the crew, we were brought kushari and cold hibiscus (karkade). This may be my new favourite meal in the world, and sparked the beginning of a slight addiction to karkade from this point onwards. Unfortunately we were told that the ability to make kushari well is a rare skill indeed. But I'm going to damn well try.

Later we met our Luxor guide who took us that evening to Luxor temple. The temple sits in the middle of the city, integrated with the local surroundings like no other. A lot of Luxor is currently being demolished by the government to make way for new excavations, as there is still apparently plenty left to be found.

Luxor temple at night was stunning, particularly due to the distinct lack of other tourists in an area that we were told would usually be packed. Notably we learnt about Hatshepsut, the only female Pharaoh, and why lots of her likenesses have been erased in various temples. (Hint: her stepson hated her).

Afterwards we walked back through the market and did some shopping. We got no end of attention from sellers and locals alike. As we haggled here, we quietly realised how royally ripped off we had all been in Dahab.

Overlanding means lots of driving, and driving means a vehicle. A vehice means a confined space, which in turn means patience and cooperation. The Oasis trucks are built to house 24 people, plus a tour leader and driver. We are fortunate in that there have been only eight to nine of us in total on this trip. We've been able to spread out,sleep across the seats and have had plenty of storage space to ourselves.

Storage is in an overhead rack and in space below which we access by removing our seats. Seats are along the edge of the truck facing inwards. Beneath the floor in the central walkway, food and various communal things are stored. There is also a selection of books and games. The truck is air oinditioned by means of entirely open windows. Plastic sheets roll down the side in the event that it does need sealing. In our current location, these have a serious greenhouse effect.

When we tire of sitting or lying on the regular seats, there's the beach. This is an open space behind and just above the truck's cab. It is usually both really hot and windy up there and is a great spot for a view. It can get violently bouncy up there on desert roads; of course we are strictly not allowed up there whilst we're moving..

When the truck stops, the kitchen unfolds. Sheets of metal surround a blackened, gas-powwered hob, and cooking is generally done in a series of enormous saucepans. The kettle is usually boiled over an open campfire for tea and coffee. Stuff is prepared on a foldup table, and three washing up bowls are ritualistically laid out (water, bubbles, disinfectant). Food is brought locally or taken from the stash of tins or dried food on the truck. Cook groups (pairs in our case) were assigned at the start and everyone pitches in with their own washing up, which operates a lot like a production line and is extremely efficient. Travellers may often be seen waving plates and pans and cutlery around for minutes at a time. This is a highly sophisticated pot drying technique known as 'flapping'.

So far we've managed to not get in each others' way and have clicked wonderfully. It doesn't take long to adapt to living like this and I think adjusting back to 'normal' life may be harder.

This trip, and my new friends, have opened my eyes to a world of new travelling possibilities and cemented my desire to explore. When the time comes, I won't be ready to come home; but when I do, I'll start planning my next adventure.

An idle day.

I sat around the hotel writing a lot.

H returned from her kitesurfing course mid-afternoon and we had a mosey around town. We regrouped with everyone else for dinner in a nice sea-front restaurant that was a lot like all of the other nice sea-front restaurants we had eaten at. Apple moussaka was good.

Then we drove to Sinai. About an hour from Dahab.

And we climbed the mountain.

Our local guide consitently told us to take it easy. We were all already exhaisted, so the climb was slow and steady and probably took about two hours. The night was hot and thirsty and our way was was lit only by our torches. The trail consited mostly of a gentle slope with steeper parts being roughly stepped. There are a number of huts selling cold drinks at gradually escalating prices en route.

At the top, our guide reccommended to us his favourite rock and we settled for a bit. Sitting still in a high place became chilly but we al fell asleep for an hour or so. Based on what we had learnt was possible in Israel, we decided that we were napping in the EXACT spot that Moses recieved the Ten Commandments.

The sunrise took ages, and by this time a massive group of Australian and Italian pilgrims had arrived at the top, singing and praying obnoxiously (in my opinion) and somewhat disrupting the notion of a nice peaceful sunrise.. Many also seemed to be intrigued by the fact we were camped out on a ledge below the peak, to the extent that they started taking photos.

Once the sun was firmly above the horizon our guide summoned us and we opted for the 3000 steps route to the bottom. This meant no other annoying tourists, and plenty of shade. Not to mention some awesome views of heaps of rocks.

We got back to the truck around 7am where Dave and Nev had French toast and beans waiting for us. Then, we drove. And almost exclusively slept.

We stopped for lunch at Pizza Hut (vastly superiour food and prices compared to the UK) as next to nothing was open because of Ramadan.

We camped in the desert that night. I opted to sleep outside again although it was particularly windy. Heather and Kathryn made a concoction with soya mince and vegetables and pasta. Worse things have happened.

The night was disrupted firstly when a potentially crazy Bedouin chap appeared and shook all of our hands enthusiastically and, we think, tried to invite us to sleep in his hut. We politely declined.

Much later I was woken by Lizzie dragging all of her belongings back into the truck. It emerged that the Bedouin man and his friend had decided that outside the girls' tents would be a great place for a lengthy chat. After some persuasion by Dave, they ledt eventually. In hindsight this incident was hilarious.

I woke up with sand ingrained in my skin. Mmm. But so did everyone who had been in a tent. So I had been no worse off.

We drove to the Israel border on a coach full of Russians, two Italian-Romanians,two Italians and a French-Moroccan family with two impossibly well behaved knee high children. Us Europeans teamed up and were delivered approximately one tenth of the information that the Russian-speakers recieved. Being in the language minority was definitely a unique experience.

At the border, after queuing for an age, we queued some more, then did some queuing. We made it through eventually, with only the minor incident of Alan's passport being temporarily confiscated.

We continued to drive, until we were suddenly unloaded at the Dead Sea. We sat around blearily whilst other tourists set to work covering themselves in mud they had just bought from a shop. This Dead Sea beach was long and white, with showers and seating and shops. From the people in it, the water appeaered less buoyant than we had seen in Jordan; we could see pipes pumping in fresh waste water from the showers, and there was a whole section signposted for no swimming, with the implication that they were polluting that specific bit. All in all, I think we preferred our off the beaten track, clamboring down a cliffside, Jordanian experience.

Back on the coach, our English-speaking guide arrived. He was friendly and knowledgable, if less talkative than the Russian one. He also had some weird affliction of the skin that caused random patches on his arms and then head to bleed unprovoked. He seemed fine, though.

We stopped at a high place to see all of Jerusalem before visiting the Wailing Wall (pro tip: you don't turn your back on it, evem whilst walking away). We spied on some praying Jewish people for a while, before moving on.

We followed a Jesus-related trail of locations, conveniently sequenced for the maximum touristic experience, in both Jerusalem and Bethlehem. These included the slab on which Jesus was lain after crucifixion, his tomb, and the patch of mud on which he was born. I may have become even more skeptical about certain aspects of Christianity as a result of this tour. What was far more interesting and inspiring were our walks through the streets, seeing markets and people, and such a crossover of cultures and religions side by side. At one point our guide mentioned how tolerant and accepting the people of Bethlehem are. When cultures coexist it seems understanding is crucial; disputes spring from ignorance and an inability to empathise with beliefs and people that are not your own.

Despite having not yet been provided with a promised lunch by 4pm (the Russians were becoming cranky) we entertained ourselves at a horrendously tacky souvenir shop, where our fellow tourists spent a small fortune on bizarre crap. Finally we were ushered into a restaurant and consumed a mediocre buffet that didn't sit right with anyone. Falafel off the street is probably a much better bet in future.

And thus we returned. After, of course, losing a number of Russians in the duty free at the border crossing for far longer than was polite. We got back to Dahab around midnight and a few of us checked out the pizza shop opposite the hotel. The guy had to go buy most of his ingredients fresh as he was about to pack up shop and visit his parents in Cairo for a month. But he as glad of the custom, and showed us how he makes Egyptian style pizza - superior to Italian in my opinion. Not to mention vastly cheaper. Sweet pizza was on the menu and I enjoyed a peanut one with sugar and milk. Curious.

I woke up in the early hours of the morning with a gecko on me.

Another fantastically lazy day, with everyone doing their own thing. H went to learn to kitesurf, and Al, Lizzie and I caught camels for half an hour to The Blue Hole, a prime scuba diving and snorkling spot.

My camel was distinctly tetchy and easily distracted,but overall highly entertaining.

I snorkled for a bit, but had a dodgy mask so it wasn't nearly as enjoyable as last time. I think we were all a little underwhelmed by the Blue Hole. It can't have helped that it was brimming with tourists.

H joined us later and we lazed about, eating, drinking and sleeping until we were collected at 5. For anyone still reading this because Chris pointed you here, he was diving all day. You'll have to ask him about that.

We regrouped for dinner at a classy looking Indian/Thai/Chinese place.

At ten, six of us were picked up from the hotel on a minibus for our next grand adventure...

We spent our first day in Dahab chilling out in restaurants by the beach, splashing about by the Red Sea and recovering from the ferry. Contrary to first impression, Dahab turned out to be fantastic. Locals are friendly and welcoming, food is incredibly cheap and the sea is warm and salty.

We're staying at Bishbishi hotel with clean and comfortable grounds and excessively friendly thoughtful staff. There are cats everywhere. Breakfast is good. Aircon costs extra and H initially refused to contribute. She changed her mind after waking up at 4am melted to the bed. (Only about £1.50 per day). It's been around 47 degrees here during the day, but a continuous breeze has made it entirely bearable.

In the evenings we enjoyed copious amounts of food (and shisha for those who chose to partake) with massive discounts due to the highly competitive atmosphere. We then hit the cocktail bars and drinking and dancing commenced. More than one person ended the night a little worse for the wear.

During day eight we were driven to the Three Pools for snorkling which I really enjoyed. Many many colourful fish and not-quite-healthy reef. Plus a good amount of lazing about in the sun was indulged in.

We're making the most out of not living on the road while we can.

Helen, Chris and I made scrambled eggs and beans for breakfast before we packed up camp and drove the short distance to the Wadi Rum visitor centre. It was the first day of Ramadan, but one shop and the restaurant were still open to sell food and drink to tourists.

We enjoyed the air conditioning, drinks and sandwiches for a couple of hours before a local guide arrived in a 4x4 to show us round the most famous sights in the Wadi Rum desert. We stopped at some choice climbing spots - heads up: desert rocks are hot!

We also investigated Lawrence of Arabia's old hangout, some water control he helped the locals build,and many ancient inscriptions in rock. We stopped at a Bedouin camp where we were guided through a small sheltered gorge by an enthusiastic nine year old, who presented each of us individually and at carefully chosen moments with gifts of small pebbles. On our return to his tent, his family made us a delicious herby tea and showed great hospitality.

We drove to the port town of Aqaba which looks pretty modern and appears to be constantly under construction. There was a nice beach but it was far too conservative a place for us to enjoy properly that afternoon. We chose a Syrian restaurant for a drink (about fifty percent of places were closed because of Ramadan) and ended up eating there as well. Portions in the Middle East are huge and we all ended up bloated. Good food and great juices.

We borrowed MacDonalds wifi for a little while before preparing to board the ferry. Our access to the ferry consisted of one deck of seating and two levels of outdoor decks. Most people attempted to sleep,with varying success. I didnt even try.

We reached land ahead of schedule but made up for that by waiting outside the immigration office for a few hours whilst staff did everything but their jobs. We were sitting in pretty grimy sand; a lucky few passed out and awoke when the sun came up. Nuweiba in the daylight was a sight for sore eyes. I may even go so far as to eloquently describe the place as an absolute shithole. Pro tip: the public toilets there are great - approaching them has the effect that you suddenly realise you can actually hold it for another two and a half hours after all.

So my first impressions of Egypt weren't the best as we travelled to Dahab. Again, most people used this journey for sleeping but I neglected to.

Continued on day seven...

The day started with a nice easy morning of packing and chilling out by the pool. This was followed by an exhaustingly violent match of water polo, at which Al and I were proven the indisputable champions. (We won nine-two against H and Chris).

We hit Wadi Moussa for a cheap (1JOD) and tasty falafel lunch. I have decided that fresh lemon with mint is my drink of choice for the Middle East.

A couple of hours drive took us to the Wadi Rum desert. The truck got slightly stuck en route which is always exciting. Eventually we found a good spot and pitched our tents. Al, H and I climbed to the highest rock we could physically get to. It took a while. The view was awesome but getting bak down was a minor disaster. Mostly for Heather. We made it eventually.

After dinner and sunset we relaxed in the gradually cooling surroundings. Speculation abot what was coming through the desert to get us definitely didn't freak anyone out. Shortly after settling for the night, screams erupted as Kath and Helen found a spider THIS big in their tent.

I slept under the stars that night,and was still unaffected by this apparently mythical 'cold' I have heard mentioned. I woke up with tiny little crabby spiders everywhere, but with no additional bites. Which is always a sign of a succesful camp.

A mega early start to Dave's porridge, and the day was set in motion with a drive to the ancient (once lost) city of Petra. Entrance was a steep 50JOD but the stunning sights occupied us for about five to six hours.

After entering through the gorge we walked along the cobbled pathway that lead to the treasury. Being 7am, other tourists were scarce and we got some good photos. We then began the inordinately long trek and climb in the increasing heat to the monestary, admiring the homes, tombs and other structures carved directly into the towering, naturally patterned red coloured rock faces.

From the monestary we followed a trail to 'the end of the earth' where we sat to take in a huge and humbling view whilst our friends back home were still sleeping soundly. We got sidetracked on our return journey by the promise of a spring in which we couls swim. We ventured well off the beaten track and eventually found a trickle. We followed this a little way and enjoyed the cool clear water (probably the same as we'd been drinking all day from bottles). Some clambering and relaxing later we made our way back. Midday heat was intensifying and the return to the town took its toll (on little old me at least). We crashed in a pub for an hour or so to recouperate before catching a taxi back to the hotel.

JUMPED IN THE POOL.

Dave invented killer frisbee which involved standing around the edges of the pool and exchanging frisbee tosses, with the aim of catching them no matter what. So lots of stylish (occasionally unnecessary) leaping into the water.

We chilled out and redied ourselves for a buffet dinner at the hotel. I spent the rest of the evening on the tenth floor roof of the hotel spying fireworks.

We awoke on a mountainside at around 7. So far nighttime has proved to be uncomfortably hot, at least within a tent. Breakfast was french toast by Heather and Kath. We packed up and set off,driving for ages to find a secluded spot by the Dead Sea. We avoided the usual areas as the were populated by local tourists. We changed into swimwear and scrambled down to experience the 30% salt water and apparently rejuvinating mud.

The buoying sensation of the dense water was the perfect, effortless suspension. The water was not as painful as I'd been lead to believe it might be and I managed to avoid getting any in my eyes or mouth. Salt deposits around the edge were pretty stunning and I would have happily stayed in the warm water for longer than the time we had.

Next stop was a town called Karak; apparently not the least nightmareish place out there, particularly for navigating with a truck the size of ours. We had a lengthy lunch (falafel pitta for me) and went to look for supplies for the evening meal. Food was massively overpriced (we were probably lied to). We visited an ancienr Crusader castle which turned out to be enormous and very underrated. Entry was 1JOD which did not include the services of an unavoidable local guide.

We were off again, destined for our final stop of the day the Al-Alanbat hotel. We were sweaty and tired and so delighted when the first thing we saw upon dismounting the coach was a shadey pool.

Everyone elso took a dip, whilst Helen, Al and I made no nonesense chilli with beans, vegetables and soya mince. Twas tasty.

Finally I had chance to JUMP IN THE POOL. It was dark by this time and the pool was freezing to start with but the swim was heavenly. Although normal water is somewhat disappointing after the Dead Sea experience.

We hit the sack early in our makeshift dorm in what may be a hotel outhouse. Insects and strange noises abound through the night. Always good for the night before a 6am start..

We spent a relaxing morning at the hotel before driving to Amman's City Mall where we saw the Oasis truck for the first time. It's pretty damn awesome.

City Mall is a large shopping complex and one of the most Westernised places I've seen so far, for the most part with no dress code observed by either locals or tourists. If you're in Amman and missing home, a taxi will take you there from the centre for 3JOD. After enjoying their version of Subway, we hit the massive Carrefour on the bottom level to buy supplies for the evening meal.

An hour drive from here took us to Madaba where we briefly visited a church filled with intricate mosaics, the most promient being a map of the holy land. We explored the small town and the guys hunted for beer (with success).

Further driving through winding steep mountain roads eventually took us to our campsite for the evening, on the side of Mt Nebo. We pitched our tents and admired the incredible view over the Dead Sea and Israel. We watched the sunset from this perspective too and Israel became an unearthly spectacle of glittering lights. We saw plenty of shooting stars, and cooking duties were gained and lost in wagers about the solar system (resolved by flaky 3G access and texts home).

Eventually we slept, woken periodically by the haunting call to prayer, all the more beautiful for not being artificially amplified. A great introduction forme into the world of bush camping.

We got to the Farah Hotel at around 11pm last night (after a great flight with unexpected free food) and met Al, one of our Oasis trip companions, en route.

The hotel (farahhotel.com.jo) is great; clean, cheap, and friendly.  Breakfast (because anyone who read my India blog will know describing food when I'm travelling is a priority) was flat bread, hard boiled eggs and soft cheese.  This set us up for a day of exploring the city (with Al and Chris who we met at breakfast).

We started by climbing to the Amman Citadel and wandering around the grounds and museum. A spectacular view of the city and a cooling breeze from being high up, along with helpful and enthusiastic tourist police made for a fantastic morning. We learnt about the history of the area dating back to the stone age in the citadel museum.

On our way out we were talked into letting a tour guide called Basam drive us to a restaurant for a fantastic local lunch, a visit to the black and white mosque which overlooks the city and the blue mosque. They let H and I in once we were covered in black robes, nd we spent a few minutes wandering through this beautiful, tranquil place. Young lads approached us to chat and welcome us warmly. Well, the guys were welcomed. H and I were largly ignored, so we kept quiet. One of the boys sang verses of the Qu'ran for us, and I have never seen a more pure delight in anyone's eyes. The other told us that he was visiting his family in Jordan; he studies medicine in Turkey in term time.

Despite feeling a bit opressed, this was nonetheless incredible.

During the drive, Basam impartedlots of local knoledge. Like that there are more Palestinians residing in Jordan than Jordinians, particularly in Amman. Jordan is also the health capital of the Middle East with govenment funded hospitals, world renowned doctors and people travelling from miles around for care.

Promising us better quality materials and better prices than the tourist areas, Basam took us to a bazaar frequented by visitors from other Arabian nations. The place was stunning and devoid of other shoppers so we had the assistant's full attention. We were welcomed with rich bitter sweet Jordinian coffee, and dressed up in traditional Bedouin garb, apparently more for his amusement than anything else. Don't worry, we have photos.

We made some small purchases,and Basam returned us to the hotel; we each gave him 10JOD for what had been a wonderfully informative afternoon which we certainly could not have managed alone.

That evening we met Dave and Nev, ur Oasis tour leader and driver, ad Helen, Catheine, and Lizzie our fellow travellers.

We spent a relaxing evening in a restaurant/cofee shop then saw the brightly lit cityscape from the citadel at midnight.

Today we drive and camp on Mt Nebo overlooking Israel. No wifi for a while!

To summerise, Amman is a stunning and welcoming city with a varied history and tolerant friendly people. I will definitely be back.

This is me making sure I can blog with my shiny refurbished Kindle. I can.

So keep an eye on this, and my twitter (@rhiaro) to keep up to speed with my trucking and desert camping adventures!

At the Future of Web Design conference earlier this month, I was inspired.  As a developer primarily and a designer when I have to be, the talks and people at FOWD were perhaps more valuable to me than if my main focus was on design.  I don't need inspiration to develop, but I do to design.

But an incredibly busy week and a bit later, I find I haven't had an opportunity to really make use of the ideas that were triggered at the conference; not only that, but the inspiration is beginning to fade.  And I will struggle to find time to watch the talk videos over the next few weeks.

I had intended to shove together a new portfolio site, to match my shiny new business cards, before the first day of FOWD.  Naturally I didn't manage to stick to this deadline, continued to work on the site during the conference, and to this day the redesign remains unfinished at localhost/.  It is so far responsive up to iPad dimensions, but the design that I was initially satisfied with has fallen out of my favour, so I'm struggling to finish.  I've been browsing collections of great web design, like this one, as well as staring agonisingly at localhost/, hoping for re-inspiration.

Turns out I dislike quite a few of the designs on that list.  Some just have too much blank space.  Many go way overboard with the 'Web 2.0' look; glossy buttons, excessive rounded corners, and the like.  Pretty on first glance, perhaps, but after seeing so many sites in the same style, you suddenly realise the genericness of them all; they give an impression of designers who forgot that the purposes of, or the companies behind the sites have their own personalities and branding that can't be represented simply with shiny buttons and background gradients.

I am currently a fan of textured backgrounds, and I'll confess I am currently of the opinion that a text shadow automatically makes almost any header text look better.  I'm sure this will wear off, just like glossy buttons did.  But I'm still struggling to find a style that suits me personally (and matches my business cards).

So far, just writing about it has helped a little, and I think I have enough beginnings of new ideas to push on.  Watch this space.

Their previous version of this particular site was the image from the event poster, with links mapped onto it.  It was mere moments before my progressive enhancement / responsive design OCD kicked in.  The site in question is to advertise this year's University of Lincoln Grad Ball, and is little more than an online poster.  So here goes.

1530
Marked up the page, with HTML5 tags and the content from the poster, using currently non-existent classes where needed, and also including a few non-existant images. Added my own mini CSS reset for the elements I was using.

1545
Cut the couple of images I needed out of the poster png and uploaded them.  Spent a while trying to find something to match the obscure Mac font that had been used on the poster.  Impact was close, but didn't quite cut it at small sizes.  Played with weighting and letter spacing for ages, but eventually picked a font from Google Web Fonts that did the trick and styled all the typography related stuff.

1605
Aligned, padded, margined and weighted everything as I wanted.  Remembered to use a HTML5 enabling script so versions of IE lte8 would actually bother to style things properly.

1625
Took a step back to look at content.  The organisation of it was great for a poster, where you can pretty much see everything at once, but in any scenario where scrolling is a possibility, the most important stuff needs to go at the top.  So I rearranged some things.

1630
Used CSS to hide a couple of elements that would do more harm than good on a device with a small display. Used media queries to show them for displays with a greater width than 480px.  With help for IE, of course.

Nasty, dirty cheating
One of the images I used consisted mostly of text, with a few images plonked around it.  I didn't have the energy to recreate this in a two-column list, especially not with the apparently randomly floating images.  The image is only used for 480px+ of course.  Mobile get a list.  Unfortunately, I just used display:none.  So mobile browsers are still loading the image.  I hate me, too.  But hey, I had an hour.  It's better than the whole site being an image.

READ MORE ABOUT RESPONSIVE DESIGN.

I wrote that in capitals, because it is not a suggestion.

And, if you're University of Lincoln final year student, get your tickets for the Grad Ball, and resize your browser window while you're there.  It's going to be the best one yet, as they say every year.

It doesn't really seem like much when summarised like this, but I do wish I was paid more than £6 an hour.

So I was all excited about block level links.

But then Firefox had to go and vomit the DOM all over the place.

Which, incidentally, screwed with my layout somewhat.

Everything else could handle it.  Including IE6.  Grr.  For the record, this was Firefox 3.6.10, Windows and 3.6.13 on Mac.

So I'll be keeping an eye on that one before trying it again.

YAY FOR LEARNING!

[A summary of things I feel about HTML5, from a sleep-deprived mind]

It feels like it should be much later... earlier... than that.  I’ve spent hours and hours reading debates about HTML5.  Mostly debates in the comments of blog posts and articles.  I feel fairly well versed in two sides of the argument, the nature of which boils down to “HTML5: What is the point?”.  

My personal view is that progression is good.  Development for the sake of development is good.  Even if you don’t get it right the first time, at least you’re doing something, and not just whining about it.  Someone (yeah, someone important, I don’t do citations at this time in the morning) said that HTML5 was being developed for the present, and that it will be rewritten in the future, to meet the needs in the future.  Lots of people had a problem with that concept, as we should be developing for the future.  Lots of people supported that concept, as predicting the future is quite a challenge.  I haven’t decided where I stand yet.  Maybe I don’t need to.  

I like the fact things are changing, because it makes me feel excited and challenged and all that.  It upsets me a little that I’d just got the hang of all this web development malarky, and now there’s more?!  Lots of people seem to feel the same about the latter.  Which is understandable.  Understandable in a world where the web is expected to be a fixed thing, and you make a website, and it works, and customers are happy, and clients are happy, and it stays like that forever.  But the world and the web (and customers and clients) are fluid and flowing and flexible and fickle.  Peoples’ needs change, hardware changes, software changes, businesses change.  They always have, and always will, so where this idea that the web should whoa slow down a second and wait for the slower ones to catch up has come from, I’m not quite sure.

This makes it sound like HTML5 appeared overnight.  Which for me, in a way, it did.  Appeared to my conscious, concentrating, information-absorbing mind, anyway.

But the part where the HTML5 spec has been under development for like six years or something now?  Come on guys.  I know it’s not easy, but really.  Give the lazy people something to complain about.  Or at least make a big deal out of it from the start.  So ‘they’ can start thinking about it from the get-go.  Maybe a big deal was made, and I just missed it.  But I was making websites six years ago, just.  So if I missed it, ‘they’ did too.

That last paragraph went a bit to the dogs.  What I’m trying to say is: the little man on the ground, the guy making the websites day-to-day, the guy dabbling, the guy fouling up the standard mark-up you hold so dear... Tell him what you’re doing, as you’re doing it, so he’s prepared.

I know you can’t force change.  Hell, outside of term time I still live under a regime where IE6 is deemed a perfectly adequate browser, installing Chrome ‘breaks’ IE, so isn’t allowed, and [insert new web thing since 1997] might be a great feature, but since my father doesn’t explicitly use it, any development on that front is pointless.  Hey, he even (almost daily) states angrily that film making companies are at fault because their productions are shown letterboxed on his 4:3 TV.  (I just searched so I could state that widescreen TVs have been commonplace since [year], and discovered that films have been being made in widescreen since around 1929.  HAH.  I’ll quote that juicy fact next time).  But this is whole other blog post.

I was going somewhere with this.  Oh yes.

I still don’t know whether I can put a <nav> in a <header>.

That’s all I was trying to find out when I stumbled across the various debates.

I’m officially declaring the HTML5 spec subject to interpretation.

And I’m putting the <nav> in the <header>.  It’s part of the header of the page.  In this particular context, if I had a div with id header, I’d put the navigation inside it.  To hell with you all.

PS. Thanks for the great work on developing HTML5, guys.  My life would be dull and repetitive without the likes of you; I’d be reading and writing a lot more fiction, and spending far more time with my family.  Much obliged.

He’s terrified of it.  

Great.

It’s a brightly coloured boing.  I think he thinks its a snake.

It was sad indeed.  Plus the hoard of ducklings is now down to seven.  (There were nine, last time I was in, and they started at ten).  Apparently they can die from being too wet.  Who knew.

I also encountered this morning: a pigeon who held his head upside down and walked in circles.  He had issues.  And a flightless canary, who seems healthy in all other aspects.  Maybe he’s just awkward.  But because of this, it doesn’t look like he’s fit for the outside aviary.  If I didn’t think Tigo would eat him, I’d adopt him in a second.

Speaking of Tigo, he seems to be exhibiting nesting behaviour:
[images]
I think he might be hormonal.  It would certainly explain the sudden increase in biting.

PS. Yesterday’s prophecy came true.  Quelle surprise.

I write this as a commitment to producing a number of useful things over the next two weeks.  And I will read all of Jeremy Keith’s books.  And I will make sure all of my sites validate, even the ones I did in a hurry.  And I will rebuild my portfolio with HTML5, and for mobile.

I’m going to start tomorrow.  Promise*.

I’m now reading this.

Things are being learnt.

* Not a promise.  In all likelihood, tomorrow, I will spend several hours at Weirfield Wildlife Hospital cleaning up excretions of sick animals and loving every minute of it; followed by an afternoon and evening spent playing Mum to a certain parrot and consequently failing to do anything else.

“There’s a buzzard in there.  He’s shit on everything.”

Turned out to be an arctic buzzard.  Way off course, seemingly struggling to walk or fly, and not in a good mood.  One to add to my list of animals I have seen, but shouldn’t ever have had chance too.

Edit: Look, it’s famous now! http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/news/ARCTIC-BUZZARD-COMES-COLD/article-2943752-detail/article.html

[This post is written as an informal part of a university module]


Speaker: Paul Charman
Area: CV Writing 

I've had so many patronising talks about CV writing in my life that I'll admit I was dreading yet another. The fact that Paul almost at once acknowledged that his slides and advice may be patronising was a good start though, I suppose. I have no doubt that for people who have not been subjected to so much identical advice in their lifetime would have found the talk useful and informative, but for me it served only to reinforce everything I already knew. 

(Not to mention contradict some of the things the first speaker of this module said, and consequently support some of my comments in my first blog post). 

With every website, book, tutor and professional giving out matching advice about CV writing, it baffles me how people still manage to get it wrong. But I guess advice is rarely given out for people to take. I do feel I learnt a great deal about the subject over summer, working closely with the staffing team at Google (although there are many company-specific quirks, that may not apply to the wider industry). But if I want fresh, new advice about applying for jobs, I feel I would seek it from a recruiter, someone in the industry... someone who actually reads and judges the CVs for a living. But even then, until recruitment processes in general get a massive overhaul, there is only so much anyone can say about the subject.

[This post is written as an informal part of a university module]


Speaker: Roy Isbell
Area: Digital security

Depending on your point of view, you can probably claim the company you started was successful if it is eventually bought out by a global giant, such as Symantec. Roy certainly had this air of success about him as he told us about the route he'd taken to get where he is today. But he didn't dwell on his life story for the entire hour as we half expected. Instead he gave a thought provoking presentation about digital security issues, from their origins in the days when losing your data was the biggest concern, to modern day crackers, malware and botnets. 

He emphasised how much of a profitable growth industry digital security is, from both the point of view of those trying to breach the security, and those trying to prevent the breaches. Roy mentioned that the UK government has recently allocated £8 million to cyber security but a quick search* yielded nothing to back this particular claim up... Instead I found articles from as recently as this afternoon about the £1 billion that will be spent on this issue, as well as quite a few statistics that reinforce everything else Roy had to say about the activity and effectiveness of botnets. 

So although I'd heard of most, if not all, of the buzzwords that came out of Roy's presentation, I'd never really thought about them. That's not entirely true. I use free anti-virus software and common sense when I'm browsing. Goodness knows data security was hammered into all the new Google interns on the day they handed over our shiny new MacBooks. But when you log into your Internet banking from your own laptop, what could possibly go wrong? How can this textbook company you've never used before, that you're putting your card details into right now, possibly not be legitimate? Why would a stranger in Russia be interested in logging my keystrokes? It's one of those... It'll never happen to me situations. 

I paid attention though, because although I've never really built a web application big (powerful, used, important) enough to warrant anything more than sanitising database entries before, I will be doing this year. So I should probably get wise to this network security stuff. 


*A search of thirty seconds or less being all the multi-tasking, attention-deficit 'Internet generation' of today are capable of.

[This post is written as an informal part of a university module]


Speaker: Ken Blair of BMP Recording
Area: Sound recording/engineer

Although Ken’s area of expertise is not directly relevant to my degree, I have frequently worked alongside media students both informally and more recently as part of a start-up company in Sparkhouse. Thus I am able to relate to many of the things he discussed about sound engineering, as I have had second-hand experience of creating soundscapes for animations, or musical tracks for short films, for example. I wrote lots of notes about the details of the things he does on a regular basis, and the differences between on-location and studio recording; between recording pop music and recording classical. But it seems fruitless to transcribe them all here, when his day-to-day experience, while interesting, is of little consequence to me personally. 

However what did catch my interest was that Ken started his own company straight out of university, similar to what I am involved with in Sparkhouse. He discussed the ‘catch twenty-two’ of needing industry experience to find work for your company, but people being unwilling to hire because of a perceived lack of experience. He also affirmed that the decreasing cost of technology has made it easier for people to create their own recording studio setups, enabling freelancers to charge the absolute minimum for the work they do, causing a very competitive price market. 

I (and the others I am working with in Sparkhouse) have fortunately been able to take advantage of the latter issue to solve the former. Several years as informal student freelancers meant we could afford to charge the minimum, or work for free, with the focus being on gaining experience and reputation rather than worrying about earning money. Now we have started our own company, we can start charging ‘real world’ prices to bigger companies, and are able to do so supported by a significant portfolio of existing work. 

Knowing that this method has so far worked for myself and others, I feel Ken could have offered his hindsight to those in the audience who may not have had the same experience. That is, he could have advised to take advantage of the years of having a student loan and lots of free time to build up a portfolio of work and experience relevant to an individuals particular career aims, without needing to worry about taxes and bankruptcy. This would help to avoid the problems that his own company had right at the beginning. 

Having said that, level three is probably too late for students to be hearing that kind of advice; it might be more useful, and inspirational, during level one. 

Ken did offer advice about writing CVs, for those who do have little industry experience - to focus on one’s skills, rather than one’s past jobs - but commented that employers of new graduates are sympathetic to the lack-of-experience problem, understanding that their job applicants have just come out of university. I’m not convinced that this is a good message to be sending... Perhaps employees of sound engineers and audio technicians think differently, but my experience so far in the computing industry (mainly software and web development areas) has taught me that the new grad job market is so saturated with graduates with high calibre degrees that having something on your CV that you have done, rather than can do is vital. 

Anyone can list the modules they’ve done, and the programming languages they have dabbled in over the course of three years. You stand out if you write about the open source project you contributed to in a specific language, or the academic poster you presented at a technology conference about your chosen field. Listing skills has a lot more impact if you can prove that they really are your skills. 

As expected, the first week flew by, with lots of small projects coming my way as well as meetings scheduled about some bigger ones. I also finally got to meet the rest of my team, who had been in Zurich at the Anita Borg Scholarship Retreat.

Google Calendar has become a tool impossible to live without. Whilst I'd never previously used it with any seriousness, after two days at Google I can't imagine ever planning my time without it again.

Similarly the Tasks feature in Gmail has become invaluble, and I've started to use it to remind myself about menial things to do in my personal life as well. The trick is to write down something you have to do the minute you're asked or emailed to do it. The list quickly became bottomless, but you can move things up and down by dragging - so it's easy to prioritise, and of course there's the satisfaction of a big tick and a strike-through when a task is done.

It also surprises me how quickly having meetings with people in other countries has become normal. Video conferencing is seamlessly integrated into the normal workflow, so you can either make a call from your desk for a quick chat, or book a room (for the person you're calling, as well as yourself) for a longer meeting. I've met the members of my team in Zurich and Vienna in this way. (Still hoping I get to head out to visit them in person some time though!)

Other particularly memorable highlights of the week included hiding under a desk, behind a giant red ball, waving toys in the air like puppets in the background of a short video... For like, seven takes. Not in my job description, but definitely fun. Plus the chocolate fountain the canteen. Everyone seemed amazed at this, so I guess it doesn't happen often. There were mini jam doughnuts to dip. I do love working here.

But not just because of the food (although that is quite a contributing factor. Seriously, the vegetarian chilli - twice - was awesome). I also love how well interns are treated, and how I feel that the projects I'll be getting started with next week actually have some sort of impact. I've made friends with a group of other interns (mostly engineering ones) and I'm pretty sure they all feel the same. We don't just get menial tasks to keep us out of trouble, but hefty pieces of work that keep us interested and thinking.

I have my own desk, my own @google.com email address and a shiny shiny MacBook Pro. I also have a million and one things to remember, three floors to learn my way around and a ton of name/face/job combinations I've almost certainly forgotten already. The important thing is, I know where the canteen is. In fact, I'm still in the office right now (the rest of the team having gone home almost an hour ago) purely because I'm waiting for the canteen to re-open for dinner.

Already I have meetings scheduled and an event to attend. I spent a lot of today learning the ropes of the intranet. There are all these delightful extra things within the regular Google products you know and love... Things that aren't available to the public, and that I can't even talk about. Keeping the excitement inside is painful, but if I breathe a word, there will probably be a contract on my head. Not really, that would be evil. But I'd be in trouble.

So while I wait for my second free meal of the day, I'm signing up to internal mailing lists... Things like... the daily menu for the canteen.

Oh, some of you may be interested... I'm entitled to bring two people per month to the canteen for lunch. That's six people in total. Let me know if you're interested, although three to four spots are probably already taken by default.

Now, I hear plates clanking in the distance... Time to go!

Having finally found somewhere to live in London, I'm now looking forward to returning to Google's amazingly brightly coloured office in Belgrave House. The few hours I spent there during my interview left me with impressions of comfy chairs, excitable people, and rubber ducks stuck upside down to the ceiling. I also got a fleeting glimpse of the legendary canteen, which I'm sure I will become very familiar with over the coming weeks.

For those of you who don't know, my role as University Programmes Intern will involve supporting the University Programmes team as they forge links between Google Engineering and the academic world, throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa (read more about it here). It's a non-technical role, but I'm hoping my technical background will be helpful in relating to the technical people (students and academics) the team will be working with.

Here's to hoping I'm up for the task!