Horror photography!

I just got back from hiking the East Highland Way in Scotland. While I was up there I discovered a new setting on my camera. In the "text" option for taking photos of print, there are four settings. One looks indistinguishable from a regular portrait setting, one is black and white, one is negative black and white, and then there's this one, a reversed color image. Looks like a cover for some Gothic horror novel! This is the cathedral at Durham in northern England.
Another view of the same cathedral. Not sure why the sky changed color.
Julián, my four-year-old son, took this one of Papa emerging from the grave.
This decayed tomb is carved in the image of a knight. What horrors lurk beneath?

Next time: more mucking about with the camera!

Passing through Oxford

I'm finally back in Madrid after more than two months on the road. I spent most of that time in Ethiopia and Somaliland working on a book on the Battle of Adowa. My series of articles about travel in Ethiopia has already started on Gadling and at the end of the month I'll start one on Somaliland.

Before settling back in Madrid the family and I spent ten days in Oxford. Almudena was collaborating with the astronomy department while I did research at the Bodleian library for my book. Julián got to see his English friends and go to camp over the Easter break. We visited the Pitt-Rivers and Natural History museums (his favorites, especially the dinosaurs) and climbed trees but sadly he didn't reacquire the English accent he had last year.

We love Oxford and spent six months here last year. There's always so much going on here and we have a good circle of friends. We had a whirlwind social schedule, including a stroll with friends through Magdalen College gardens to take these photos, and managed to pack in a fair amount of work too, plus a traditional Sunday roast at our local pub. I even managed to go to the Odyssey 2010 f/sf/h convention.

Sadly, our trip was all too short, but we'll be back in the summer for a couple of months. In the meantime I'm planning on hiking in the mountains near Madrid, remembering my Spanish as I forget my Amharic, writing lots, and spending a week in Rome at the national archives.

Frightening flags

As I've mentioned before, my son loves flags, so sometimes we check out Flags of the World, a great site where we can fly around the globe in an imaginary plane and look at all the colorful flags. This one, thankfully, is not among them.

It's is from the Benin Empire, and dates to the early 19th century. That empire is now defunct, probably because they weren't as good at chopping people's heads off as the competition. I have to say it's an odd flag. A nation's banner is supposed to symbolize its very essence, what it means to be part of that nation, and this is what the leaders of the Benin Empire came up with? Ah well, that was a while ago, and the world has changed right? Nope. Exhibit A: the flag of Saudi Arabia.

The Arabic is the Shahada, the Muslim article of faith, saying, "There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah." No problem there, but what's with the sword? Is this how they want Islam to be depicted? How about giving money to the poor, which is one of the five pillars of Islam, unlike lopping people's heads or hands off. Then we have Exhibit B, the flag of Mozambique, also a modern example:

Yep, that's a Kalashnikov! The flag was adopted in 1983 and is based upon the flag of the Liberation Front of Mozambique, which fought for independence from Portugal and eventually won. A Marxist party, it incorporates as its symbol a hoe, book, and gun, a common Marxist collection to show the unity of various parts of society. In the 90s the party dropped its Marxist ideology but hasn't changed the flag. Opposition groups have called for a new image, but so far nothing has changed.

Now I know it's not politically correct to criticize anyone's culture but your own, but I have to say, "People, change your bloody flags!" And I do mean bloody. How am I supposed to explain flags like these to a four year-old?

Painless travel with a four year-old

I just traveled from Madrid to Oxford with my wife and four-year-old son. This involved a twenty-minute taxi ride, two hours waiting at the airport (where I photographed a cop playing solitaire), a two-hour flight, an hour bus ride and another short taxi ride.

Doing this with a four-year-old? Piece of cake.

My son loves travel. Perhaps it's genetic, but more likely it's because he's enchanted with cars, planes, boats, buses, basically anything with a motor. Plus we make sure of three things when we're traveling:

1. He has enough to eat. A hungry kid is a grumpy kid.

2. He's comfortable. Not too hot, not too cold, and that he gets enough sleep.

3. He's entertained. We always bring coloring materials and some books, as well as a surprise. Usually it's a big glossy magazine about trains or cars. This time around it was a scuba diving magazine. We've been watching Jacques Cousteau together and I've promised him that we'll do scuba lessons for his 16th birthday. Flipping through pictures of sharks and coral reefs burned up more than an hour of flight time.

If you follow these three simple steps you can be pretty sure your kid will have an enjoyable travel experience and you won't want to kill them before landing. My son has traveled a fair amount and we've had no major blowups. Of course, we didn't take him on our road trip in Ethiopia. We'll have to wait until he's at least six for that.