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Dinosaurs and Robots posted a couple of great videos of Charles and Ray Eames being interviewed on the Arlene Francis “Home” show in 1956. Being the 1950’s, Ray is portrayed more as the supportive wife rather than the collaborating artist but they are fascinating to watch. I love the cinematic score that accompanies the unveiling of the Lounge Chair at about 3:40 in part 2!

One day I hope to put my feet up in my own Eames Lounge…

I’ve been rinsing my internet connection uploading loads of pictures to the gallery.

Back in June we had our yearly long weekend in the Lakes. Usually we go for a few moderately easy walks around the Fells but this year we decided to walk up a mountain. With its summit at 3,054 feet, Skiddaw is the fourth highest mountain in England. And it is one helluva climb. It was basically two hours of going up. When we stopped for lunch at Little Man the clouds suddenly descended on us and we found ourselves surrounded by mist. Despite the danger of plummeting 3000 feet to a stony death we pressed on grimly, occasionally passing fellow walkers as they loomed out of the whiteness. When we finally reached the summit, the clouds parted for a while giving us a muted but still impressive view over the fells. We couldn’t quite make out Ireland or the Isle of Man though…

Coming down was probably harder than going up; a winning combination of endless pounding on the knees and constant danger of slipping and falling on something sharp. It was fun. Really.

The next day we aimed for something much more relaxed. Starting in Keswick we wandered around the beautiful Derwent Water and up to Castlerigg Stone Circle finishing with one of the most amazing panoramas in the Lakes at Castlehead.

In July it was Jonathan & Louise’s wedding at the beautiful old Saxon church at Breamore. This was followed by a totally awesome reception at Lodge Farm which culminated in a huge fireworks display that destroyed a couple of tables. I love fireworks.

We left the day after the wedding to meet up with Carl and Jill in Venice, which by coincidence was the same place Jonathan and Louise were going on honeymoon! It was fun to catch up with them one night to see a concert of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons (natch).

Venice was the first place we visited abroad when we came to the UK and it’s just as wonderful now as it was then. It’s still the kind of place where you can pop into a random church in some quiet campo and find that it turns out to be San Zaccaria which contains the body of John the Baptist, is stuffed with the most amazing works of art including Bellini’s Sacra Conversazione and sneak down some stairs and you come across an incredible permanently flooded crypt. This time we also had a bit more money, so we could afford two of the other kind of Bellini’s at Quadri’s this time instead of having to share one between us.

We stayed at a fantastic hotel in the Dorsoduro called La Calcina. From February 13 to May 23, 1877, John Ruskin stayed there and it is in a nice quiet area on the Giudecca Canal. They also have a roof terrace which you can book to have breakfast and gives an amazing view over the canal.

We visited the excellent Peggy Guggenheim Collection, we saw lace making on the colourful island of Burano , we saw glass making (and spent way too much money) at a glass factory on Murano, we visited the sublime cathedral of Torcello and took in the view from the tower of Palladio’s magnificent San Giorgio Maggiore.

Despite the tourists La Serenissima is still like nowhere else on Earth and what better way to leave than by speedboat with the wind in your hair and the sun setting across the lagoon.

Kids shows were better in the old days.

Our good dog Bluey died today, aged sixteen years. He was a gentle, good natured dog with a deep interest in black socks.

Like most dogs he also loved to eat, although when his sister was around he would only get what she allowed him. His most favourite food of all, however, was whatever you happened to be eating at the time. I have strong memories of Bluey sitting at my feet, watching every mouthful of toast or chips or whatever, fully believing that this time I wasn’t going to give him any. Of course I always did. This is important, I think. A boy needs a dog to share his crusts with.

He lived a long and happy life but I suppose he missed his sister.

I’ll miss you, Blue.

We all know about The Book of Mozilla but Firefox 3, which was released today, has a cute easter egg when you type about robots into the address bar with all sorts of robot references.

I always thought Alistair Darling looked like a Thunderbird, but today realised who those eyebrows really reminded me of: Sam the Eagle from the Muppets.

Paul Graham has written an interesting essay on great cities and the messages they give out and why it is that a city should have such an effect on a person and their ambitions.

No matter how determined you are, it’s hard not to be influenced by the people around you. It’s not so much that you do whatever a city expects of you, but that you get discouraged when no one around you cares about the same things you do.

I’ve seen a few cities now and each one has its own distinct soul that can’t help but subtly affect you when surrounded by it. Apparently the message Paul gets from London is: “one should be more aristocratic”. I’m not sure I agree with him. Then again, thinking back to when I first arrived here, maybe I did notice a more class-based society.

Maybe I’ve just tuned that message out as background noise.

I just received a notification that my first Kiva loan has been repaid! Kiva is a micro-lending website where you can make loans directly to entrepreneurs in the developing world. You can see who I am lending to on my Lender Page.

It’s a great way to help people improve life for themselves and it gives you a real connection with the people you lend to in interesting places around the world. So far I have made micro-loans to people in Kenya, Tajikistan, Peru and Cambodia.

Where’s the best place at SFO to kill an hour? Not the Northwest WorldClub where I’m typing this (although it is a fairly nice lounge - mmm, chocolate chip cookies). No, the best place is the San Francisco Airport Commission Aviation Library & Louis A. Turpen Aviation Museum. Who would have thought there is a whole museum in the airport?

The museum is just before security at Concourse A and is a lovely, quiet space with plenty of chairs and lots of interesting exhibits. The museum’s collection is housed in a two story room modelled on the Passenger Waiting Room of the 1937 San Francisco Airport Administration Building. The top floor is an aviation library with over 6,000 books and periodicals. The bottom floor houses different exhibits from the collection. At the moment they have an exhibition on Cathay Pacific on one side and aviation toys on the other. There are some marvellous steel planes and zeppelins.

The museum is open 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM Sunday through Friday, so if you happen to be waiting for a flight around then I thoroughly recommend taking a look.

After a very long week I could do little more than lay around in Huntington Park on Nob Hill today but tonight I caught the F Train to Davies Symphony Hall to see Michael Tilson Thomas conduct the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra in an all Brahms concert. Lief Ove Andsnes played the Second Piano Concerto and the second half was Brahms’s Fourth Symphony.

It was a great concert, despite sitting next to a head nodder and occasional hummer (!) who had an odour that suggested he had just had the Forty Clove Garlic Chicken at the Stinking Rose. MTT conducted the symphony without the score which allowed him the freedom for some truly balletic gestures; sometimes it looked like he was fencing with the violas.