Engelburg

Town of Engelburg, as seen from Mt. Titlis

Switzerland.

Walking in Circles.....

The satisfying feature of this time’s Circle line walk was that it was totally unplanned, on the spur of the moment decision. Also, It is more significant because except for my first attempt, my two other casual attempts were aborted, or rather incomplete. The day was perfect, and the company committed. We were just hanging about the Tour de france fever and suddenly decided around noon to try ambulating the circle line. A lazy friend who had woken up to a Sunday brunch joined in. We started quite late from Tower hill station, around 2 in the noon and took our own sweet time during the walk; discovering places, clicking snaps, sharing stories etc. We even found time for a big meal in between and a large burpy drink.

It was all going great until we discovered that we were still at Paddington quite late in the day. What followed was most memorable- a very strong exhibition of resolve and will to complete it at any cost.
Since it wasnt planned we had just come in our casual shoes, which made our tired feet ache unbearably. Though the walker I am, I have never experienced such miserable pain ever. The walk between Pancras and Farringdon was excruciating, with fleeting thoughts of abandoning the venture. But we pulled through, pepping one other with all the stories, anecdotes, histories, we never knew we had within us. By the time we reached Lime street, we were dead knackered. But the sheer madness and pride was such we insisted on completing it inspite of all the moaning and cringing. Thankfully from now on we were aided by a friend who amidst enjoying our miseries from his cosy comfort, guided us all the way over the phone through the darkest but shortest avenues of London. By the time we had circled off back into Tower Hill it was just past midnight. And an air of rare accomplishment filled our beings, escaping out as a huge Hurrah that alarmed a few Spanish tourists hanging around the station. Very few circumambulations have been as satisfying as this. And I have done a few.
Next day we pushed on to France pursuing the Tour de France racers; It was only in Calais that I noticed my feet were full of blisters. And I tell you it was worth each one of them.

PS-Next is the C2C, it cant be any impulsive, needs meticulous planning; but shall be done.

Snap: London Eye, South Bank London.

Marksburg....

Day after day I had woken up to this view on a calendar featuring the castles of Europe. And one day when I saw the same view not on a calendar but off my window, It wasn’t all surprising that I felt quite at home.

~ Marksburg, off the besotting Rhine Valley , Koblenz

Germany.

We'll always have Paris...

Doesn’t matter what you have read or heard about Champs-Élysées , you have to stand on that stretch of bikilometre between Place de la Concorde and Arc de Triomphe to appreciate how grand and elegant it is. At night, it transforms into a beauty as much a beauty any city can afford. The flowing traffic, the impeccable lighting with its sea of revelling humanity, adds an air of sophisticated charm that is not paralleled anywhere else.

Dearer, yes. But worth every cent of it. Comparison is a crime but just to weigh in the scales- even Dublin, with its fabled Temple Bar locale seems puny. All credit should of course go to the French, for their enviable sense of beauty and for taking elaborate pains in not turning it into a Piccadilly circus or Times square. Though it is the heart of fashion empire there is not a single halogen light flashing a product. When I enquired about it I was glad to find out that it is illegal to put on any flashy advert on the avenue. By-lanes yes, but not the main street. In fact it is a rule that all the names of the shops on the historical avenue should be in white. Here’s a story-

When McDonald’s with their business eye opened an outlet on the Champs-Élysées, they put on their gaudy yellow big m logo. The French being French explained the rules governing the street advertisement and received a typical American taste for a reply stating it was their logo and therefore they had the right to put it up in front of their franchise. Etcetera.
To this, The French served them their best wine and how only the French can do asked them sweetly to fuck off elsewhere. Of course not in as many words. Well now, If you happen take a look at the McDonalds on Champs-Élysées you would find it in a decent white without any sunrise yellow logo.

But hey its not all bullying , the outlet puts forth the most profit for any McDonalds outlet outside United States. So both are la happy .

Had it been any other part of the world where a sense of aesthetics is buyable, the grand avenue would be a neon nightmare by now but not here. Champs-Élysées is acclaimed as the most beautiful street in the world- La plus belle avenue du monde and it shows how much it takes to hold on to it.



1. At 2 am on a saturday morning
2. On a lazy very very hung over Paris sunday.

On the art of innocence.....

It would be good to give much thought, before
you try to find words for something so lost,
for those long childhood afternoons you knew
that vanished so completely --and why?

We're still reminded--: sometimes by a rain,
but we can no longer say what it means;
life was never again so filled with meeting,
with reunion and with passing on

as back then, when nothing happened to us
except what happens to things and creatures:
we lived their world as something human,
and became filled to the brim with figures.

And became as lonely as a sheperd
and as overburdened by vast distances,
and summoned and stirred as from far away,
and slowly, like a long new thread,
introduced into that picture-sequence
where now having to go on bewilders us.


~Rainer Maria Rilke, Childhood.

Undoubtedly one of the most adorable photos I have snapped.

~ Somewhere opposite Lake Léman, Geneva.

Musée du Louvre

as seen from atop the Eiffel:

Ash Wednesday,

On days like these
When the sky hangs heavy
And the rains do not
Cease,
I have my lunch
thinking
How it would be
to have a lunch
Without
thinking of you.

In progress

In the miasma that is my consciousness, I did not want to let this slip by. A recent im conversation with an old friend led to a discussion about the actors we like / promisng actors we ought to watch out for. Didnt want to miss writing a few lines about them here so just putting up the list we made as a reminder. shall write once time permits.


Benicio del toro
Billy crudrup
Edward Norton
Mark ruffalo
Jacqueline phoenix
Tobey macguire
Robert Carlyle
Philip Hoffman
Jack black
Cillian Murphy
James spader