The 2025 swimming season finishes - this time for real

Shortly after having written my previous post¹ about the end of the swimming season, I discovered that the pool would be open for 'health swimming' on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. The first two days weren't suitable for me, but this morning I had my final swim (definitely) for this year. At 7 am on a cloudy morning, the pool looked a bit different than it does at 8 am (or 8:30 am) on a sunny morning; apart from the life guard and myself, there was only one other swimmer. All the chairs and umbrellas had been packed away.

I had decided in advance to swim 20 lengths - after all, today is a work day, but if I wasn't over-tired after swimming 30 lengths on Saturday, I could knock off 20 today without problem. Towards the end of the swim, I decided that I would swim the final length in backstroke; after all, this used to be my primary stroke when I was young, but these days it takes too much out of me. At first, swimming on my back went well ... until I crashed into the side of the pool. We don't have lane markers, so I had no idea that I was actually swimming in a slight diagonal direction. This left me with about a third of the pool to swim, so I turned over, got into position then finished off the length.

By chance, today was a good example of intermittent fasting. Yesterday I had an appointment with the dental hygienist at 3 pm, a very awkward time regarding eating. I had a slice of cheese and bread at about 12:15 and didn't eat anymore. I wasn't hungry after the appointment, and went to bed early as the treatment had apparently taken a toll on my body. This morning I woke up as usual at 5:30 am (I actually woke up a few minutes before the alarm clock), took the dog for her walk, worked for 30 minutes, went to the pool, swam, came home then showered, so it wasn't until 8 am that I started on my breakfast. That's 20 hours without food. I say to myself that I'm getting in practice for the Yom Kippur fast that starts tomorrow afternoon.

I wrote² a few days ago about the book "The new spy" by Michael Dylan that I felt was a bit over the top. Over Sunday and Monday I read another book of his, "Rich men, dead men", that is the first book in what is (so far) a trilogy about Dylan's creation, DI Simon Wise (he actually pops up in a cameo role in "The new spy").

This was a better book than "The new spy" and had me guessing until almost the end who the perpetrator of the four murders was. But when I finished the book, I was struck by the thought that the device of having a murderer commit several "unnecessary" murders in order to hide the motive behind the one important (to the murderer) murder was slightly familiar to me. 

At the moment, I can't remember where I might have encountered this device, and the AI program Gemini couldn't point me in the correct direction either. That said, I suspect that one of the four "Hampstead murders" books of Guy Fraser-Simpson used this plot. I'll check this out in the next few days.

Internal links
[1] 2006
[2] 2005

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
15	30/09/2005	Getting a musical education (2)	The Band
104	30/09/2007	More folktronik	MIDI, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Folktronix, The mythical man-month
888	30/09/2015	Recommended statistics book	DBA, Statistics
1076	30/09/2017	Relaxing foliage	Ambient music, Home movies
1831	30/09/2024	If John Le Carre were still alive	Israel, John Le Carre

The 2025 swimming season finishes

Although in one sense this has been a good year for swimming, in terms of totals it pales against those of last year. The reason for this is that I missed six weekends of swimming this year: two weeks for the war with Iran, one week after the biopsy, two weeks for holiday and another week missed because I obviously picked up some form of rhinovirus returning from Italy, making the first week back a round of sore throats, sneezing, coughing and general malaise (that's 6 X 2 X 24 = 288 lengths that I could have swum). I made up for that week by swimming four times this week, with 16, 24, 24 and 30 lengths in those days. Yes, yesterday I went all out and swam 30 lengths (following a breather after 26 lengths): there was no need to save my strength for anything, although afterwards I have to say that I didn't feel particularly tired. I note that the water was very cold this week.

Adding this year's data to the table that I presented last year¹, one gets

Year	Number of swims	Total lengths
2019	16	438
2020	24	562
2021	30	548
2022	29	567
2023	31	561
2024	34	710
2025	32	600

Apart from missing six weekends of swimming, this year's total shows that the average length of a swim decreased, when compared to last year (18.75 as opposed to 22.19). This is because I swam several times during the week on work days, something that I haven't done before, but as I didn't want to tire myself too much, I only swam 10-12 lengths on those days.

Next year will be interesting as my 70^th birthday will neatly bisect the season. As I intend to retire from full time work then, it might well be that I will swim 20 lengths or more several times a week after my birthday. Quite possibly I will swim during the week prior to retiring but not full scale swims.

Internal links
[1] 1834

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
14	28/09/2005	Something special - Delphi rules!	Programming, Delphi, Randy Newman
289	28/09/2010	Malta log #1	Holiday, Malta
290	28/09/2010	Malta log #2	Holiday, Father, Malta
636	28/09/2013	Reading books	Films, Literature, Beatles
637	28/09/2013	More afterwords (My gap year, part 8)	Gap year, Old recordings
1075	28/09/2017	Train journey to Karmiel	Trains
1176	28/09/2018	Walking the dog leads to epiphanies	DBA
1261	28/09/2019	Understanding the UNLINK command in Priority	Priority tips
1669	28/09/2023	The amateur nutrionist	Health, Nutrition
1829	28/09/2024	Where good ideas come from	Meta-blogging, Non-fiction books, Blog manager program

Act of defiance

Although this is billed as a Jack Ryan novel, this is really a Katie Ryan novel. Whilst this book is one of the best in the Jack Ryan franchise, the continuity is terrible. I suppose that if I had picked up this book without having read any of its predecessors, then I would be impressed, but the pedant in me has to point out the following.

• In the much earlier book "Locked on", Jack Ryan decides to run for president for the second time. His third child, Katie, is reported as being 10 years old and his fourth, Kyle, is aged 8.
• In "Act of defiance", Ryan is still president and his cabinet is still composed of the same characters. Yet Katie is now a Lieutentant Commander (select) in the U.S. Navy and Kyle is a Lieutenant, USN. Obviously they've aged some fourteen years overnight.
• Katie and Kyle are now twins (they've been referred to as twins in other books as well).
• In the list of principal characters, Dr Sally Ryan (the first born) is an opthalmic surgeon (as is her mother). Yet in chapter one, a few pages on, we read that "Like her older sister, Sally, who loved her work as a pediatric surgeon ...." Bad editing.
• John Clark is still going strong. I suppose that if we are still in Jack Ryan's second term as president, then John Clark too has not aged.

Once one gets past these errors, the book is very good.  The plot is very reminiscent of Tom Clancy's first novel, "The hunt for Red October", echoing it to no small amount. Even several characters in the book are aware of the parallels! This makes for a very interesting, and dare I say it, exciting read. 

Fortunately or not, all of Katie Ryan's ideas, suppositions and guesses turn out to be correct, echoing those of her father's. As in Stella Rimington's books, KR is always right. As someone wrote about Rimington's character Liz Carlyle¹ : What I hate most is that Liz Carlyle is portrayed as being completely omniscient. Every hunch she has, every deduction she makes, any inferences she makes from questioning people - they're always right! This feeling that MI5 could function effectively with only one member of staff - superwoman Liz - spoils it for me. She's the one who could tell you what the train driver had for lunch just knowing his shoe size. Shame - because otherwise a good read. No wonder that KR gets up some characters' noses. Being the daughter of the president doesn't help, either.

The use of acronyms, especially those that are not explained, gets tedious, although I imagine that spelling them out in full would be even worse. The most egregious example is the SCIF - there is no explanation of what this might mean, although it's probably something that starts "secret command" or "secret communication" -it's actually Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. I was taught that before using an acronym, one should spell it out in full then show the acronym in brackets. If there is a list of principal characters, then there could easily be a list of acronyms.

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Another book which I read during a slow day at work was "The new spy" by Michael Dylan. This purports to tell the tale of MI5 almost agent Jo Batten's last week as a probationer. Whilst it starts off promisingly in a computer orientated manner, it soon degenerates into the type of book personified by Jack Ryan Jnr: an analyst ends up in all kinds of action orientated escapades. Whilst the final act of the book - Jo racing a motorbike through the grid-locked streets of London in order to neutralise an assassin who will strike exactly at the hour 8 pm - is exciting, to be honest this isn't the type of book from which I derive lasting enjoyment. It's a competent thriller, but not exceptional.

Incidentally, it might seem that all I do is read books. At the moment that's not far off the truth as we are in the High Holidays period in Israel when every other day seems to be a day off work. I am also preparing for my retirement. But soon that will change and it will be back to full working weeks with extra consulting on the side and less time for reading.

Internal links
[1] 400

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
1260	27/09/2019	Blood test results	Health
1531	27/09/2022	More statistical analysis	Programming, Statistics, Psychology
1828	27/09/2024	Searching	Programming, Delphi, Blog manager program

Danny Thompson (continued)

Nick Drake's "Cello song"played through my headphones this morning while I was swimming. Naturally I thought of Danny Thompson, who plays on this song, and then at the speed of thought realised that what I wrote yesterday about singing "Happy birthday" at Cropredy 1997 couldn't be correct. Danny's birthday is at the beginning of April so obviously it wasn't his birthday in August.

Then I remembered that we were singing "Oh Danny boy" and that he was hospitalised at the time.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
287	26/09/2010	Prague log #4	Holiday, Prague
288	26/09/2010	Prague log #5	Holiday, Prague
635	26/09/2013	More holiday	DBA, Statistics, Sandy Denny, Old recordings
1175	26/09/2018	Turnitin	DBA
1259	26/09/2019	Two important events	DBA, Health
1338	26/09/2020	Priority procedures cross referencer	Programming, Priority tips
1668	26/09/2023	"The great escape", aka "The 7/4 song"	Song writing
1827	26/09/2024	Dim the main application form when a modal dialog box is displayed	Programming, Delphi

Danny Thompson RIP

My old acquaintance Ian A. Anderson posted the following on Facebook: Legendary acoustic bass player Danny Thompson died peacefully yesterday at his home in Rickmansworth, UK. A musician who was both beloved and admired by everybody he worked with, his body of work is unparalleled in its quality and also in the incredibly varied number of musicians he worked with. From Kate Bush and John Martyn, to his role as a founding member of the legendary band Pentangle; from featuring on the Thunderbirds theme tune, and playing bass for Roy Orbison when The Beatles were still the opening act; to collaborations with jazz greats like Tubby Hayes and Stan Tracey, as well as work with Donovan, June Tabor, Nick Drake, Richard Thompson, and The Blind Boys of Alabama. Danny was a force of nature. A player who served the song and who enriched the lives of every single person he met. He will be sorely missed.

For me, he was the bassist who played with Nick Drake and John Martyn in the 70s; in the 90s he played with Richard Thompson (no relation) in a series of non-official duo performances that set fire to the strings. 

At the 1997 Cropredy festival, I (and twenty thousand other people) were recorded singing "Happy birthday" to Danny on the occasion of his 58th birthday, making him 86 years old at the time of his death. I admit that I hadn't given much thought to him recently, although I have known for several years that his health was not good.

Guardian obit here.

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Today of course is emigration day¹; I was thinking about this yesterday and about the various junction points in my life that caused me to end up where I am now. I realised that I probably would not be the same person that I am now had my life taken a different course.

Internal links
[1] 1174

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
202	25/09/2009	Defining my laptop computer's wireless IP settings	Computer
286	25/09/2010	Terezin	Holiday, Holocaust, Terezin
634	25/09/2013	Emigration	Israel, Kibbutz
1174	25/09/2018	It was 40 years ago today	Israel, Personal
1339	25/09/2020	Accordion	Musical instruments
1530	25/09/2022	Two films	Films
1667	25/09/2023	Emigration day	Israel, Personal
1826	25/09/2024	The guitar returns	Jewish holidays, Guitars, Musical group

Robert Redford RIP

RR was the actor of the 1970s for many people, including me. In the first part of that decade, he seemed (to me) to be in a triumvirate with Ryan O'Neal and Warren Beatty; whereas the latter two seemed to disappear after about 1976, Redford went on and on and became a megastar.

I have only two clear memories of RR: the first was in 1975, when I saw his film 'Three days of the condor' at the film club of my university. The second was probably in 1979: my then kibbutz had started several discussion groups and I decided to create a film club. No one came to the opening meeting but I ignored this and wrote a report as if several people attended. There was a line about choosing our favourite actor, and RR won that award.

I don't recall if I ever saw 'Butch Cassidy': if I did, it would have been on television many years after it was released. I'm not sure about 'The sting': I know that I saw it when it was released, with a group of friends, and Scott Joplin became the tune of the month, but I don't know when this was. Later on there was 'All the president's men' and 'A bridge too far'.

I read 'The natural' when I was still at secondary school and later read 'Ordinary people' in about 1976; in both cases, I had read the books several years before they were turned into films.

One of my favourite films with RR was 'Sneakers', a film that didn't receive the recognition that I felt it was due.

Redford's sparring partner in 'Butch Cassidy' and 'The sting' was Paul Newman, and I have a few words to say about him. When I emigrated to Israel, people frequently got my surname wrong, calling me 'Noiman' (as someone pointed out, it all depends on whether your paternal grandfather was born in Germany or Poland; mine was born in London in the 1880s). I used to correct them, saying that it was 'Newman, as in Paul Newman, my uncle'. In those days, people knew who Paul Newman was. Later on I had to replace Paul with Randy.

As it happens, yesterday I read a thread in the Cormoran Strike Reddit group about Paul Newman: When Matthew is talking with Robin outside the bar on Christmas Eve, he says “who’s the Paul Newman look alike?” and I just thought this was kind of odd for someone his age. Would he really reference an actor whose heyday/peak resemblance to Murphy was in the 1950s/60s? Why not a more contemporary actor? I actually had to google Paul Newman to see what he looked like when he was in his 30s, because I had no idea. The general concensus was that somone of character Matthew's age would not know who Paul Newman was.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
199	17/09/2009	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Literature, Steig Larsson
977	17/09/2016	Obligatory monthly grandfather picture	Grandfather
1072	17/09/2017	Interface for importing XML files into Priority	Priority tips
1168	17/09/2018	Maartin Allcock, 1957-2018	Obituary, Fairport Convention
1664	17/09/2023	The GI tract and the new guitar	Guitars, Musical group, Nutrition
1822	17/09/2024	Is this the government that we deserve?	Israel

Biopsy results

This morning was extremely frustrating. I had to take my motorbike for its MOT test; fortunately the place that does these tests is not very far away, and as I know the owner (I did some programming for him over 20 years ago), he usually passes the bike with just a cursory examination. But this time, when I checked in, I was told that as the bike is over 15 years old, it has to have a special brakes test that can only be done at an authorised garage - the nearest is about 40 km away. So I have to arrange for the bike to be picked up, tested and at the same time have a 5,000 km service, then returned ... and only then can I do the MOT test. The licence finished yesterday. Next week is the beginning of the festival period.

At the same time that I was (not) dealing with these problems, I received several phone calls from the local health centre; I only knew about the last one as all the others came when I was driving the bike and so did not hear them. I didn't know who specifically was calling and also I didn't know why, so I couldn't easily return the call. Then a nurse from the kibbutz clinic called to say that a nurse from the centre had been trying to call me - apparently the doctor who performed the biopsy¹ a month ago had received the results and wanted to talk to me.

So I drove to the health centre (not very far from where I was), spoke to the nurse and then sat down to wait an hour for the doctor to finish his regular appointments. Apparently he is shortly going on holiday, which explains the hurry. The biopsy results show that I have Bowen's disease, not a BCC or a sebaceous cyst. This is treated by what's called Mohs surgery; the difference between this and a normal excision is that each excised piece of skin is examined on the spot, thus ensuring the full removal of the growth, as opposed to removing some, sending it off for biopsy and receiving an answer a month later.

I have an appointment for the beginning of November.

Internal links
[1] 1984

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
975	16/09/2016	Intermediate submission accepted, part two: the feedback	DBA
976	16/09/2016	Sleep apnea (again)	CPAP, Apnea, Gadgets

2,000 blogs

Quite a milestone. Blog #1900 was written on 10/02/25, so that's 7 months for 100 blogs, or 14.3 blogs per month. Here is the histogram of blogs per month, although of course September has yet to finish, so to the 13 blogs so far recorded will be added several more.

Of greater interest - to me, at least - is the list of topics that caught my attention during that time

Position	Tag	Count	Previous position	All time position
1	Holiday	12	-	3
2	Italy	11	14	8
3	Rapallo	11	-	79
4	Health	8	6	5
5	Musical group	8	17	35
6	Pedal board	8	-	56
7	Programming	8	1	1
8	Israel	7	5	7
9	Personal	7	4	4
10	Delphi	6	3	6
11	Non-fiction books	6	18	30
12	Obituary	6	10	9
13	Headphones	5	-	53
14	Army service	4	-	93
15	Song writing	4	11	11
16	Tom Clancy	4	-	89
17	Blog manager program	3	2	36
18	Computer	3	-	16
19	Guitars	3	-	23
20	Mobile phone	3	16	34
21	Police procedurals	3	19	21
22	Slow cooker	3	-	62
23	Swimming	3	21	37
24	voice recorder	3	-	223

And for those who like frequency histograms

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
281	14/09/2010	A twilight health stage	Health
405	14/09/2011	Firebird DB management	Programming, Delphi, Firebird
510	14/09/2012	Happy New Year!	Jewish holidays
974	14/09/2016	Intermediate submission accepted!	DBA
1662	14/09/2023	A long, long day	Jewish holidays, Health, Guitars, Musical group
1820	14/09/2024	Remixing 'Tribe'	Home recording

Rapallo log 9 - Trouble in paradise

Today is our penultimate day in Rapallo so there wasn't very much planned to do: mainly packing and buying a few presents. We had for lunch once again pizza bianca tonno e cipalle: we didn't even have to order as the waiter already knew what we wanted. I didn't think that there would be anything to write about today - in fact, I had packed my computer and all its attending cables - but still ....

At the witching hour of 6 pm, I went out for a long walk along the promenade. There was a congregation of policemen near the ticket office for the ferry to Santa Margherita/Portofino that caused me to raise my eyebrows; when I looked to my right, on 'the restaurant side', there was a political rally being held at the Chiosco della Musica. Trouble in paradise: this is the first expression of anything to do with Israel and Gaza on this trip. The sign in the middle which can't easily be read in this photo reads Pace per Gaza <undecipherable> Medio Oriente, obviously meaning Peace for Gaza and the Middle East.

I carried on walking on the promenade, past the furthest part of where the market was, when I chanced upon a huge statue of Christopher Columbus, much larger and more impressive than the statue in Santa Margherita Ligure.

Further on, I encountered a group of women dancing - presumably some form of exercise group. Even further along, I came across an old church that is completely hidden from our side of the bay, and finally took a picture of a large house that is clearly visible from our side. 

Then I walked back, by which time the rally had almost dispersed.

Tomorrow we leave the hotel, take a train to Milano Centrale, have lunch, then take another train to Malpensa airport. Our flight is supposed to leave at 19:45, so obviously there will be no blog tomorrow. Not only that, the next one will be blog #2000, an auspicious number.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
8	12/09/2005	Andrew Keeling	Nick Drake, King Crimson, Andrew Keeling
52	12/09/2006	Busy busy busy	Programming, Stevie Wonder, Teeth
631	12/09/2013	The North Star Grassman	MIDI, Sandy Denny
756	12/09/2014	Importing a csv file into a multi-sheet workbook with automation	Programming, Delphi, Office automation
1071	12/09/2017	Exchanging warning and error messages in Priority	Priority tips
1423	12/09/2021	The next stage in the aldosterone saga	Health, Blood pressure, Aldosterone

Rapallo log 8 - A day off

I woke up this morning feeling slightly strange: I think that it was an after-effect of travelling on the ferry yesterday - I had minor balance problems that wore off during the day.

Today was market day again: instead of buying one bag for 100 € as my wife had intended, she bought three, each costing only 20 €. I suppose one could say that we saved 240 €, but of course she wouldn't have bought three bags at the full price. I finally found a Rapallo t-shirt in the right size and better designed that simply slapping 'Rapallo' on a shirt.

Other than that - nothing else to report.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
6	11/09/2005	Song uploads	Soundclick
7	11/09/2005	Comments	Meta-blogging
198	11/09/2009	Sandy Denny in "Ma'ariv"	Sandy Denny
404	11/09/2011	Fictional MI5	TV series, John Le Carre, MI5, Stella Rimington
755	11/09/2014	Last of the Luddites	Mobile phone
1167	11/09/2018	New Year holiday	DBA, Personal, Swimming
1257	11/09/2019	Mobile phone problem ... solved	Mobile phone
1421	11/09/2021	Chicken and rice together in one pot (2)	Cooking
1422	11/09/2021	Smart watch (2)	Mobile phone, Walking, Swimming
1527	11/09/2022	The ink black heart (2)	Cormoran Strike
1818	11/09/2024	Guitar setup	Guitars

Rapallo log 7 - Villa Durazzo

Today was in some respects a repeat of yesterday: we awoke to rain, but fortunately it had stopped before we left the hotel. We wanted to go back to Santa Margherita Ligure in order to visit Villa Durazzo, but due to the fact that far fewer people want to visit SML than Portofino, the first ferry there only left at 11 am. 

I had done more homework regarding the villa that I had about the shop supposedly selling chocolate, so I was able to lead us to one of the entrances to the park. What I did not know was that the park was situated on the top of a hill: the distance itself was not too far from the centre of SML, but attaining the height was problematic.

The grounds were very lush, and my wife the gardener enjoyed seeing various flowers and bushes. When we came to the villa itself, the time was 12:40 pm, and the last entrance before lunch was at 12:30 pm. So we had to wait for lunch to be over before we could go in: this was supposed to be at 2 pm, but was more like 2:15 pm; as a result, we (and others) had to wait an hour and a half before we were allowed in.

To be honest, the villa itself was not particularly interesting; it was smaller than we had expected. Of course, one has to add the long walk up and the long wait to the disappointment with the villa: YIMV. In all honesty, I can't really recommend a visit to villa Durazzo.

My wife's legs were not capable of taking her back down to the seashore, so fortunately we were able to ask a local who appeared at the right moment if he could order for us a taxi. About five minutes later, the taxi turned up and took us down to the Christopher Colombo statue - for 25€! The driver claims that there is a fixed price for journeys within SML, but I think we were fleeced.

Anyway, the ferry soon turned up and took us back to Rapallo; we had a very late lunch at the same restaurant as the day before, sharing the pizza bianca tonno e cipalle between us. During the meal, it started to rain again, requiring some rearrangement of seating. By the time we had finished, the rain had eased of and the sun came out again.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
403	10/09/2011	Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world	Israel
508	10/09/2012	PDF games	Programming, Computer
1817	10/09/2024	Temu surprises!	Temu

Rapallo log 6 - random notes

• When exiting the hotel, one can either turn left, to the promenade, or right, to the cable car. There's a pedestrian crossing immediately to the right of the hotel, and every time I cross it, I am reminded of the film 'Local Hero': each time that Mac leaves the hotel, a motorbike comes past and nearly knocks him down. There are many motorcyclists in Rapallo.
• There is nothing to beat the feeling at about 6:30 pm, when the air is full of the tang of either the sea or lightly fried fish. Everyone comes out at that hour and walks the promenade.
• Yesterday morning there was a family of ducks bobbing about in the sea next to the castle. This morning my wife spotted a dolphin slightly further out, but parallel to our terrace.
• Today was one of those "four seasons in a day" days. In the morning, there was a thunderstorm with several flashes of lightning. After the rain stopped, there was an intermediate stage of being warm but humid, and by 2 pm, the sun had come out and the clouds had disappeared.
• We went to Santa Margherita Ligure this morning (in the rain) by ferry. The idea was to track down one of the places that supposedly sell the chocolate that I'm looking for. At first, we simply wandered around, enjoying the views. My wife wanted to stop at a sea-side café, but I thought that it was too early for morning tea. So we continued walking, and every now and then I tried to figure out how close we were to the desired location. When we couldn't find it, we had to resort to asking people in the street. I was walking down one street when suddenly I noticed its name - it was, of course, the street that I was looking for. The actual street number was that of a bar - the name matched what was written down.
• I think that the waiter said that there were more free tables 'on the other side', so we walked through the café, only to discover that 'the other side' was the seaside café that we had seen before! After refreshments, I paid and asked the girl at the counter whether they sold the chocolate. No, she replied, but there is a shop around the corner that should have it. She wrote the name of the shop on my receipt, Seghe220. 
• I walked around all the streets where we had been before, this time looking for Seghe220, but with no luck. I stopped outside a big shop that was selling many kinds of chocolates, wines, etc. The name of the shop was Seghezzo, not Sehre220, but even so, I thought that I would take a look around. Then it struck me: I had misread 'zzo' as '220' (it looks the same in handwriting) and so I was outside the shop that the waitress had recommended. Needless to say, they did not stock the chocolate.
• Back in Rapallo, we had lunch at one of the small restaurants hidden in the historic quarter. I asked for a pizza bianca tonno e cipalle (onion and tuna pizza) but that it be a 'white pizza', without the tomato sauce. This was delicious and too much, so some pieces we had wrapped up and we'll have them for supper.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
5	09/09/2005	Even more about The Rotters Club: book vs tv	TV series, Canterbury sound, Jonathan Coe
507	09/09/2012	What's the difference between a Ph.D. and a D.B.A.?	DBA
630	09/09/2013	Afterwords (my gap year, part 7)	Habonim, Gap year
886	09/09/2015	First cut	DCI Banks, Peter Robinson, Police procedurals
1166	09/09/2018	Happy new year!	Jewish holidays
1420	09/09/2021	DBA pilot study	DBA

Intermission: The Hallmarked Man

This is the eigth book in the Cormoran Strike series. Published on 2 September, I had hoped that my copy would arrive that day so that I could make a start on it during our travels, but it only came after I arrived in Rapallo. I've been reading it mainly in the early mornings and evenings, and I finished it on Friday evening; that said, I will have to read it again soon as my understanding of the detective part of the book is somewhat lacking. It's a complicated story and I don't think that I was paying enough attention at the beginning.

So what can I say? Well, the Reddit Strike community has been guessing for several months what the book - primarily the non-detective part - will contain, and most of those guesses were correct:

• Bijou Watkins makes a repeat performance
• Johnny Rokeby finally makes his initial appearance
• DCI Murphy is caught drinking

The first part of the book has a great deal of inner monologue from Strike and Robin, and I have to say that this gets tedious. So many personal misunderstandings; instead of trying to clear the air and explain what they mean, each takes the other's actions and dialogue in the most extreme manner possible that leads to misunderstandings escalating to anger. I would have thought that grown adults could do better.

There are many references to babies: not only the infamous Bijou, but also to Robin's elder and younger brothers. Robin's police friend Vanessa (she appears in one of the early books, and in 'Troubled Blood') is on maternity leave. And Robin - who does not have a baby (that's not a spoiler).

The subcontractors appear somewhat less in this book; Barclay, the Scot, doesn't have as many funny lines as in previous books. Dev Shah, the pretty one, had his nose broken in a previous book and here he gets stabbed in the leg, but it's off-screen. On the other hand, new hire Kim appears rather too much and gets fired by the end of the book. The small amount of comedy that the book possesses centres around the fish tank that Pat the receptionist brings.

I had got the impression that a sizeable amount of the story would take place in Sark, the smallest of the Channel Islands. This certainly adds colour and variation to the story, but in the end, Strike and Robin are there for one night only/

To me, it's strange how people (Reddit Strike fans, that is) approach the books. For most of them, it seems not to be a series about a private detective agency, but more about how two people can meet, become friends and possibly more. For example, here is a typical quote: Some people need to understand that this book isn’t the end of the series. If it was the final book and it ended like that, then I’d get the disappointment but there are still at least two more books to go. A lot has been invested in Strike-Robin and I’m convinced there will be a payoff before the end and that it will be beautifully written.

No one would have considered the Inspector Banks books in the same way. These books had short arcs with characters appearing for a few books then disappearing, but there was a never a sense of progressing to a specific resolution. The books only finished because author Peter Robinson died. The Strike fans seem to be more influenced by the Harry Potter series and its multi-book direction. Just because J. K. Rowling is the author of both series doesn't mean that Strike is going to have the same arc as HP. 

Rapallo log 5 - Monterosso

Today we returned to Monterosso, one of the Cinque Terra villages; we last visited there in 2015¹.  Many things have changed in the intervening ten years: the beach in front of the train station used to be empty, but now it was full of sunbeds; then it wasn't particularly crowded but today it was. Some of these changes may be because last time we visited in May, which is off-season. Anyway, we arrived at 11 am; many people got off our train (probably from Genova) to join the heaving packs of people who had already arrived.

To be honest, I didn't enjoy myself very much today - probably because of the crowds. There was yet another market set up just below the train station, and my wife bought some presents there for our grandchildren.

We caught the 2:55 pm train back to Rapallo - this was yet another inter-city train for which I had to enter my name and email in order to buy a ticket. I discovered when I returned to the hotel that emails had been sent to my account regarding the tickets. At least I didn't have any of the problems that I had in 2015 when trying to buy the train tickets.

Internal links
[1] 853

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
3	08/09/2005	The Rotters Club	Literature, Canterbury sound, Jonathan Coe
4	08/09/2005	More Hatfield, Jonathan Coe and Ben Trotter	Literature, Canterbury sound, James Taylor, Jonathan Coe
197	08/09/2009	Richard Thompson - You?Me?Us?	Richard Thompson
629	08/09/2013	March-June 1974, my gap year part 6	Israel, Kibbutz, Gap year
1165	08/09/2018	Ikigai - a reason for being	Personal
1816	08/09/2024	Weekend observations	Personal, Swimming, Musical group, Blog manager program

Rapallo log 4 - Cable Car to Montellagro

I'm not sure where I first read about the Rapallo cable car - whether it was in a list of things to do in Rapallo or in T. A. Williams' book "Murder in Portofino" - but whichever it was, it was something that I intended to do. Originally I thought that the cable car stop was somewhere behind the train station, but when I found it on the map, I discovered that all I needed to do was to walk out of the hotel and keep walking - not turning left to the promenade or the historical quarter. This path shortly took me under the railway bridge and into residential Rapallo, and after ten minutes and 1,770 steps (I measured in order to tell my wife how far away it was), I arrived at the stop, then walked back. The cable cars leave every half hour, so it was easy to figure out when to leave.

There were only two other people in the car going up with us, so it was easy to film the ascent that takes one up from residential Rapallo into the hills behind. There are surprisingly many villas on those hills, many with their own small swimming pools. After a few minutes ride, we arrived at the top. I knew that there was a church/monastery there worth visiting, so we walked up the many steps from the cable car stop until we reached the magnificent church of Montellagro.

As we arrived, it seemed that the morning service (after all, it was Sunday morning when we visited) had just visited and many people exited the church. Inside, every scrap of wall and ceiling was covered in paintings and mosaics, a far cry from the usual unadorned synagogue. 

It didn't occur to me then, but it does now: how was this church built at the top of a mountain? How were the necessary building materials transported? The village Montellagro is closer to the church and higher than Rapallo, but even so, the questions still stand. 

Leading up to the church is a long avenue with many trees which provided well needed shade from the hot sun. In the avenue was yet another imposing building that had been turned into a gourmet restaurant; we didn't eat there, but I saw that most of the tables were occupied.

We hadn't timed our visit very well as we returned to the cable car station to discover that there was a break in the timetable, presumably for lunch. So we had an ice cream at the small café and waited for service to be resumed. When we returned to Rapallo, it was straight to the hotel and into a cold shower: I think that I was slightly dehydrated. 

After siesta, we went into the historical quarter: my wife was looking for light summer dresses whereas I was looking for chocolate. She found her dresses, but although I found some very interesting food items, the chocolate that I was looking for remains unfound. Eventually we turned onto the promenade, had a pizza in one of the many restaurants there, then hang out on the promenaded for another half hour or so.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
2	07/09/2005	More introductions: music and me	MIDI, Beatles, Richard Thompson, Reason
402	07/09/2011	A resizable dialog box	Programming, Delphi
628	07/09/2013	December 1973-February 1974: my gap year, part 5	Israel, Gap year

Rapallo log 3 - Genova

During the night, I could feel pain from my left 'big toe' - gout again. I had a mild attack about a week ago and treated it with Ibuprofen that I bought from the chemist, but one pill seemed to do the trick and so I didn't bother bringing those tablets with me. Fortunately, there is a chemist situated less than 100m from the hotel, so I hobbled over there as soon as I could and bought more Ibuprofen 200 mg. During the day, the pain wore off, so I was able to walk better; I took another pill in the evening.

After a stroll through the historic town choosing a different route from before, we arrived at the train station in order to catch a train to Genova. There are several stations in Genova; we alighted at the teminus, Genova Brignale. The plan was to get on the Genova Hop on/Hop off bus that I assumed would have a stop near the train station - it didn't. After some dillying and dallying, we took a taxi to the aquarium.

Before going in, we saw that there was a stop for that bus where we alighted the taxi; after a short wait, the bus came so we boarded it. We were handed headphones and not asked for our tickets, so we rode for free. Just as well, because what we saw was not very inspiring. When the bus came round to the aquarium again, we alighted. 

After waiting in a short queue, I bought tickets; being over 65, we were eligible for a 15% discount so our tickets cost 27€ each. I know that I am not doing this justice, but the aquarium was very good. There were many types of sea organisms on display, ranging in size from miniature sea horses and jellyfish to large sharks and dolphins. This seems to have been the first time I have seen a sea horse at close range, and at first I couldn't understand how they managed to move; eventually I saw a small dorsal fin, and apparently they also have pectoral fins on their head that are used for steering (thank you, Gemini AI). 

After a short interlude in the cafeteria for an onion foccacio, we carried on to see more sights. Eventually the tour finished and we were outside. Yesterday, I wrote There are a few gelateria in Rapallo that display their goods so that one can choose by sight as oppose to name; I'm hoping that I will find my favourite mint choc chip flavour. As one can guess, outside the aquarium was a small cafeteria that displayed its ice cream as well as listing them, so finally I had my first taste of mint choc chip (in Italian, "menta", which is the same in Israel. I'm always afraid that pistaccio will be substituted for peppermin). It wasn't as good as I remembered, probably because this was a commerical outlet who do not make their own ice cream.

After finishing our ice cream, we went to the taxi rank and took one back to Brignale, where we waited about 30 minutes for our train. The Italian train service works differently from the Israeli - this may be because there are different companies operating on the same lines. In Israel, there is a fixed price for every journey and it doesn't matter what the time of day is. Here, the same journey can have different prices. I saw that there was a train to Rome whose first stop was at Rapallo; had we travelled on this train, the price would have been far higher than the price that we paid for a local train that made about seven stops before arriving in Rapallo. The ticket in the morning was slightly cheaper than the ticket in the late afternoon because the morning was off-peak whereas the evening was probably considered to be in the rush hour.

Back in Rapallo, we made the compulsory stop in Carrefour (milk, water, etc) before carrying on home to the hotel. Underneath our balcony is a restaurant that is a subsidiary of the hotel; we had been warned that is best to make a reservation first, and as today was Saturday, meaning restaurants would be full, I made a reservation for another hour. We ate grilled "fish of the day", expertly filleted by one of the waiters. This was supposed to be served with seasonable vegetables, but there was a slight misunderstanding with the waiter: my wife wanted a salad instead of the vegetables but I didn't, so initially I was served with the fish (much more than the fillets that we ate a few nights ago) and nothing else. Never mind. 

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
1	06/09/2005	Introduction	Personal
83	06/09/2007	The happiness formula	Psychology, Martin Seligman
399	06/09/2011	At risk	MI5, Stella Rimington, Liz Carlyle
400	06/09/2011	At risk/2	MI5, Stella Rimington, Liz Carlyle
627	06/09/2013	Late November/December 1973: my gap year, part 4	Israel, Kibbutz, Gap year
973	06/09/2016	Central sleep apnea	Health, CPAP
1070	06/09/2017	A legacy of spies 2/How old is George Smiley?	John Le Carre
1336	06/09/2020	What a weekend!	Delphi, Musical instruments, Weather
1526	06/09/2022	The ink black heart	Cormoran Strike
1815	06/09/2024	New goggles	Swimming

Rapallo log 2 - a day with two halves

Half one: a rainy morning in Rapallo

The weather forecast for Friday was light rain until 7:30 am, and then again from 10-12 am. This forecast was very accurate, and so I woke to the sight (but not sound) of light rain on our balcony. This rain wore off while we were having breakfast, and so did not cause us any problems when we set off for the historical town, which is after all only 100 metres from our hotel.

Walking through this area and stopping at several shops took some time, but by the time we finished one walk through and ended up again at the Porta della Saline, rain had started to fall again. The intensity varied from light to moderately heavy, causing us to both put on our rain gear (we had come equipped this year) and to seek shelter under trees. In tribute to last year¹;I had to have my picture taken in full regalia. I should point out that my belly is not so big: my bag was being sheltered inside the rain coat.

Eventually we got to the hotel, dried off then had morning tea. As the rain had stopped and was not predicted to return, I walked to Carrefour and bought today's lunch.

Half two: a sunny afternoon in Portofino

After lunch, we set out again to the ferry point (which can be seen in the background of my picture) in order to sail to Portofino. Despite its fame, I wasn't overly impressed, but that's probably because we only walked around the harbour area that was at times quite crowded. We intentionally set sail to Portofino relatively late in the day (we arrived at 2:30 pm) in order to miss most of the crowds, the day tourists; I had bumped into a few groups in Rapallo in the morning. Also, the village itself is higher up than the harbour, and it's a slightly awkward walk to get there - the pedestrian area is mainly cobbled which is bad enough when walking on the level, but hard when walking up a slope.

The first thing to do was to eat gelato: there hadn't been an opportunity yet in Rapallo to eat ice cream so I was determined that we should have some here. As I wrote many years ago, "A day in Italy without gelato is a day wasted". I wouldn't say that this was excellent ice cream (actually mine was a sorbet). There are a few gelateria in Rapallo that display their goods so that one can choose by sight as opposed to name; I'm hoping that I will find my favourite mint choc chip flavour, then ask what it's called so that I might buy it again.

After buying a few trinkets and a dress for our youngest grand-daughter, we walked a bit more around the harbour, then waited for the next ferry back to Rapallo.

Maybe we didn't take advantage of what was on offer in Portofino (I can't see my wife walking up to Castello Brown), but I can't say that I was overly impressed. The ferry journeys were fun, though.

Internal links
[1] 1751

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
196	05/09/2009	More porting issues	Programming, Delphi, ClientDataSet, dbExpress
626	05/09/2013	Late September/Early October, 1973 - My gap year, part 3	Israel, Gap year
1069	05/09/2017	A legacy of spies	John Le Carre
1419	05/09/2021	Walking apps and smart watches	Mobile phone, CPAP, Walking
1525	05/09/2022	Hard boiled eggs	Cooking, Kibbutz, 1972