The agony of Athens

Twelve hours! 8-to-8 tramping around the Greek capital's sights in Augustine heat, from the Agora to the Acropolis and everything in their foothills. Despite the acreage of Nikons and the fact the Parthenon's got the builders in. (They're repairing damage caused by Turks in the 1600's. At least there's something in a building schedule the Poles can't be blamed for!)

It is impressive. It really is, even swathed in scaffolding and sunk in a demeaning sea of tourists. The only truly 'properly' proportioned building in the world, not in cold maths but human perception, columns and porticos arranged in regular 9:4 ratios but flared and distorted in the marble to fool human eyes into thinking they're seeing perfection. Which they are. The thing's huge, but thanks to the optical illusions it retains its human scale. Majestic.

And because I like to see a city's geography rather than burrow down into subway tunnels, today's resulted in two raw inner thighs, chafed by twelve hours of urban trekking. It's a pain in the ass. (Now, I know that too is a bit of a Greek thing - remember all that Alexander business? - but I'm Modern enough to think my ass is my own.)

Sooo..painful. But content, as I collapse over a cold beer in the shadow of the rock. Definitely something flatter tomorrow though.

Classical faces

Athens!

Birthplace of Western civilisation, the city-state where it all began, the axle around which the classical world revolved!

And for such a reputed smog-ridden overcrowded hadeshole, it's surprisingly easy to get around. There's a Metro stop right at the airport, just a few stops and you're in town. My hotel - for once I prebooked; must be getting old - was just the other side of Omonoia Square. Pleasant little place, all narrow corridors and twisting staircases that'd give any British building inspector a heart attack.

But what I noticed first, this being my first time in Greece, were the faces. It's uncanny seeing people you recognise from the British Museum only not realised in marble. On the train, I saw a Poseidon, a man of about 50 with tight peppery curls and a neat beard, a canonical face that hadn't mixed with non-Athenians in eighty generations. Then an Apollo, a fair youth of strong shoulders and flawless skin. And of course several Aphrodites, beautiful young women with faces straight out of a Homerian epic. I'm launching my ships already.

This is Greece, and I'm going to see a lot of over the next few days. But first, tomorrow, comes the starting point, a 25min walk south. The greatest building ever constructed, one of the few perfect pieces of architecture on the planet. The Parthenon.

Tarring and feathering

Mob justice is of course completely unacceptable, a travesty of law and order, and a dark stain on our great society.

But let's face it... assuming this guy actually was a drug dealer as believed, the tarring and feathering attack in Northern Ireland is really funny!

Forest fires rage across Greece

Flipping' blink. No sooner do I decide to do a '300 tribute backpacking trip' than the Peloponnese is consumed by forest fires that 'blot out the sun'. I'm starting to think I should charge insurance companies for promising NOT to visit world heritage sites.

Well - I did say I would 'backpack in the shade'.

Zoom baby zoom

I'm trying to love my digital SLR camera.

After years of travelling with nothing more than a cameraphone to record visual memories, I thought a decent SLR camera would be a worthwhile purchase. The Canon 400D's a terrific machine, solid and dependable with lots of exciting manual controls and superb image quality. But I just don't 'love' it somehow.

The reason for this: I'm possibly the worst photographer in the world. The exemplar situation was at Burning Man a few years ago. In my viewfinder there was a vast fire with a collapsing 40m statue, two hundred mostly naked people waving tiki torches, a Saturn V rocket launching off to one side, a caterpillar the size of a double decker bus weaving through the crowd, a three-storey wooden temple rising out of the desert floor... and somehow I managed to take a REALLY BORING PHOTO of it.

The Canon 400D is a great machine; the lack of love is down to the photographer, not the camera. I just resent carrying such a bulky item around somehow. So in an attempt to love it, I've bought a really ridiculous zoom lens - 11x optical zoom.

Wow. I'm ready to love this thing now.

Now professionals HATE lenses like this. Ultimately good photography depends on getting a solid image through a tunnel of curvy glass bits, and that is HARD, which is why professional lenses cost so much. This isn't a pro lens, and it zooms big, which means the image quality would be laughed at by any serious amateur. But I just like the idea of a nice big zoom, and with this lens - a cheapo 28-300 OEM telescope that folds up no bigger than the 18-35mm afterthought supplied with the camera - I've found one.

These two photos of St Paul's Cathedral were taken from the same spot, unzoomed and max zoomed, no tripod, full auto. (In other words, the worst possible way to take a zoomed pic.) And the images are both perfectly good enough for my album. (My lack of photographic skills is of course obvious here: why didn't I turn the camera around to make this a vertical shot, to get St Paul's spire in?)

But I like it. And with it, perhaps I can start loving this amazing little SLR, and snap plenty of ten-megapixel memories in the Peloponnese next month. As I always say, you haven't taken a picture of the Parthenon until you can see the whites of the sculpture's eyes.

Big Mac at 40

The Big Mac is 40 today. And it seems it's bigger than ever: 600 calories in Mexico, over a hundred less calorific in New Zealand. (Those Antipodeans always were a health-conscious bunch.)

The biggest change in the UK is that despite all the salads tossed into the menu, nobody above social class D eats in McDonalds any more. I haven't had a Big Mac since I was a teenager, although I did sneak a 'Royale with Cheese' in Paris once. The British McD's is a working-class institution, and seems unlikely to change.

The Bourne Parody

I have to say this American comedian's Bourne spoof is pretty entertaining, too.

Bourne to be wild

The Bourne Ultimatum! I've always had a sneaking respect for Matt Damon; not one of Hollywood's obvious leading men, he's not part of the scene and lives quietly with his family in Miami. But he gives the highest ROI of any star, and he was perfect for what's become his signature role - not flashy, not great looking, a bit dull really. In other words, a believable character. And the film's a rollicking two hours amidst the wreckage of duff blockbusters this summer: I yawned through 'Spider-Man 3', 'Die Hard 4', and 'Transformers'. No yawning in Bourne country, at least.

But it's a flawed film, not up to the excellent previous episodes.

For a start, the handheld camera stuff near the beginning is a bit selfconscious - 'I'm doing it 'cos that's what you do in a Jason Bourne film'. It works to convey the fog and confusion of chase scenes, but why use it in extreme close-up while two characters are just calmly talking? And the perfunctory scene where Bourne hits an Internet Cafe, channeling the great 'Hotel Brecker online search' in Bourne 2 - it lasts just a second or two, almost an afterthought just to get the motif in.

Also, the script isn't as tight as the previous Bournes. For example, it's now obvious something was going on 'twixt Jase and Nicky before he signed up to Treadstone; was she the reason he went into the programme in the first place? But this isn't explored, even though the excellent Julia Stiles is given a bigger role. And why exactly did Nicky happen to walk into an empty office in the middle of the night by coincidence, just as Jason's doing the place over? Not set up well. And the journalist killing - this ultra-secret government agency 'ties off' a hack who knows too much by... the subtle method of shooting him at rushhour in Waterloo Station. Loose end there - the Guardian wouldn't have let that one drop. (The Mail, maybe.)

The film also suffers from the same paranoia as 'Die Hard 4': thinking that just because it's powerful and well funded and unaccountable, a secret government agency can snoop and snitch on anyone, no hiding, no getting away. And if the agency wanting CCTV footage really is secret, then think of the average guy working the security detail at Waterloo - what would he REALLY do if an obnoxious American from an agency he's never heard of phoned in demanding a live uplink of every video feed within a km? 98% of CCTV cameras aren't linked to anything but the screens in the operator's room; that's the CC part.

There's also an uneasy connection between Cold War iconography - false passports, papers stamped TOP SECRET - and sophisticated spy technology. Why, if they can tap into a satellite uplink in Tangiers, do they keep lots of vital documents printed out on paper in a safe in the boss's office? There's nothing so insecure as plain paper.

And this whole notion that a government agency is able to move fast enough, mobilise strongly enough, and have motivated enough leadership to react within minutes to a single codeword picked out from an Echelon-style listening system. If you wanted to do that, you wouldn't choose an easily-confused word like 'Blackbriar' for your black ops programmes - especially when most of the film is set in London. (If you had a mission to shoot everyone who mentions a word sounding like that, you'd have carnage at a certain City of London train station every rushhour...) The film suffers from a common misconception of universal surveillance: that the authorities have the ability to sort out signal from noise.

It's also got the same thing I recently found annoying in Fantastic Four 2: the apparent worldwide hall pass enjoyed by US agents that lets them carry guns, tap into phone calls and CCTV footage, and bump off random strangers anywhere without fear of consequences. Look, Blair may have tried to make Britain a poodle, but we're not THAT cringing. In addition - as has been aptly demonstrated in recent times - the CIA is, in reality, a bit crap. From the Bay of Pigs to Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan - not a SINGLE agent on the ground as the Taliban rose? Power-crazed perhaps, dangerous certainly, but the efficient, honed machine portrayed in the film? Definitely not.

But these are niggles. All the other motifs of Jason's reality-TV action style are well used. There's a full second of looking around, thinking, making decisions before taking action. Urban scenery, from buses to bystanders, become weapons in the Bourne idiom. The setpieces are great, all the better for being familiar everyday locations (in the Bourne mould) rather than Bondian highlife of casinos and superyachts. The Waterloo sequence - a mere hundred metres to be traversed, with CCTV cameras given elegant menace and crowds used as cover - is terrific.

The best part, though, is where we realise with a jolt that one scene isn't a flashback: the first half of the film happens, chronologically, before the end of the second. Brilliantly done. (I believe the scene was actually written by Matt Damon himself.) The scene works because it fills in a minor gap in the previous film - how Bourne knew Pam Landy would be in her office, at that address.

Also, we end the series where we came in: with Bourne floating in open water, near-dead. But this time - he pulls himself up. A cute metaphor. And perhaps there's one more film in this franchise. We still don't know who David Webb really was, or why he made the decision to get his brain washed; and there are a LOT of unanswered questions about the icy Nicky. Since the films are totally different to the books anyway, the studio doesn't owe anything to Robert Ludlum; let's have one final Bourne, and learn where the man came from.

There's no place like home

Every time I feel a bit down, I take a look at a Google's-eye-view of a friend's house in Kansas' hurricane zone... and remind myself of what happened to his home before and after.

"300": the backpacking trip

I've decided to rough it across southern Greece this summer, and I think I've got my theme: reading Thucydides' 'History of the Peloponnesian War' and visiting the sites it references in order.

Now Thucydides was one cool dude - the first true historian. (Even if he did dress the story up a bit.) Imagine the scene in ancient Greece, as things got risky among the olive groves and you couldn't even take a moment to anoint yourself with oil for fear of some half-dressed gym bunny shoving a spear between your ribs.

Thucydides (rushing into Agora, ducking spear): Hey guys, it's getting pretty exciting around here isn't it!

Thasos (puts down amphora): Thuce? What are you doing here? Aren't those gold mines interesting enough for you?

Thucydides: No future in gold. The future's in... writing about stuff!

Cimon: Great! I can't get enough of Zeus and his homies. Those religious epics rock.

Thucydides: No, I mean actually writing down what happens! Recording actual events that may change the course of... I'll call it 'history'!

Thasos: Can't people just go and look? (Dodges giant flaming tarball.) I mean, where's the entertainment in what 'actually happened'?

Thucydides: But think of posterity! A great city at the nexus of warring tribes, a centre of learning and enlightenment where Plato himself once taught!

Cimon: What, Athens you mean? A half-wrecked fort at the ass end of Europe with a lousy harbour and enemies at the gate? Trust me, this place is yesterday's news. (Aside) Hey, you in the red underpants, put down my wife!

Thasos: Naw, Thuce. It'll never catch on. Let's stick to gods and shepherds. There's this kid Sophocles doing some good stuff.

Cimon: I think he should at least give it a go. At least you'll get my name right, with an S.

Thasos: OK, I'll buy a copy. But only if you make that big Persian less scary.

Thucydides: Don't worry. In centuries to come, they'll just laugh at Xerxes as an oversized gay dude.

Cimon: What's wrong with being gay, then?

Flicking through a DK Eyewitness, it seems most of the sites have survived, albeit mostly as ruins. Delphi, Thermopylae, Sparta ... even the public square where Paris first got jiggy with Helen of Troy has been located, although that was some 700 years before Leonidas buckled up his battle pants. (Probably wasn't public back then.)

All I need now are some red trunks, and I'll be ready to film a budget remake of '300'! At least I won't need suntan oil - if the sun's too hot, I shall backpack in the shade.

Seeing red... already!

My word. After finally ordering the iPod I need less than 24 hours ago, it's already arrived, complete with engraving! I'm in awe of a supply chain that can process orders, do custom engraving, pack, pick, dispatch and deliver within 24 hours. Well done, Apple Store.

(And before anyone asks what an about-to-be-student is doing buying the latest cool kit, it's down to two things: I want to use the Nike Plus training system that only works with the Nano - to bring time management and structure to my workouts - and lectures at my University are heavily podcasted, making an iPod useful for offpeak learning experiences via the aural channel.)

But the clincher, of course, was that it comes in that amazing red colour.

This is my first brush with Apple in 25 years of using computers, and I'm impressed. Pictures don't quite give an idea of how small it is; it's TINY - but no tinier than it needs to be. I can enclose it in a palm, yet it's just large enough for the screen to be readable and the wheel tactile.

The design delight starts at the packaging - a hinged perspex case no larger than a big box of matches, yet enclosing iPod itself (held proud of any surface by contoured grips), instruction books, earphones and cable, all folded up like a Transformer.(If the Transformers had disguised themselves as iPods, I think the iPod would actually attract more glances.) The scale throws out proportion: I was concerned that the earphone jack looked bigger than standard and my own earbuds wouldn't fit. In fact, it's a standard jack, made to look bigger by the iPod's minisculity.

And when I take it out, weigh the little oblong in my hand, I almost shiver. A complete visual and tactile experience, before I've even charged the thing up. Apple's just so much better at this stuff than anyone else; having spent a quarter-century in the PC world, I feel like a 1960s Soviet citizen suddenly teleported to... Renaissance Italy. I don't want to touch this thing so much as bite it.

Of course, all this beautiful industrial design conceals the real value of an iPod: it's not about the hardware, it's about the system. iPod exists because the culture of iTunes exists, even though I never expect to use iTunes. The Video iPod and the iPhone aren't the story; the network effects are the story. Steve Jobs' real goal is to be the distribution channel for all media, just as Nike+ wants to be the training programme for a billion athletes.

Nike and Apple. Two of the greatest brands on the planet, brought together in one functional experience that blends entertainment, athleticism, and learning experiences. I live them, vicariously.

MBA: May Be Annoying

There seem to be a lot of books, courses, and programmes on the market riffing on the term 'MBA'. Since I'm about to embark on a 'real' MBA and will be sweating over it for a year-plus, I'm not sure whether to be annoyed at all these freeloaders, or heartened at the extra kudos these wannabes give the MBA 'brand'.

This guy Josh Kaufman has written 'The Personal MBA'. What exactly is not 'personal' about a real one? Writing a huge cheque for tuition felt pretty 'personal' to me. The real one is likely to add zeroes to my net worth and and letters after my name. In fact, there's nothing more selfishly personal imaginable!

Ecademy stalwart Fraser Hay has his 'Lead Generation MBA'. He assures me it stands for 'Marketing by Action', to which I reply, 'Whom are you kidding' - the inference is obvious. What's worse is that 'MBA' is precisely the wrong way to describe a focussed, specialised programme of anything; the whole point of the qualification is that it helps you generalise, broaden specialist skills into a wider set of circumstances. (I've suggested he renames it 'Lead Generation CSE' but he hasn't responded. :))

There's a Millionaire MBA programme too, and worse, it's sold at 'The Red Shop'. Jeez.

There are also countless books 'about' the qualification that pretend to be 'as good as' the qualification. Take this one, this one, or this one. An MBA in ten days? How about one day? How about.. your lunchhour?!!

Worst of all are those that present the MBA as some sort of unattainable ideal conferring sagehood, like 'What the best MBAs know'. Once again, putting the qualification on a pedestal is dishonest; it's a practical course that gives business actions a theoretical underpinning, nothing more. I'm doing it because it's a useful way to fill in some gaps in my experience, not because I want to strut about waving a certificate in everyone's face. I do enough strutting already.

Google and you'll also find 'parenting MBAs', 'programming MBAs', and even 'lovemaking MBAs'. Now there's a course I'd enrol on, but that's beside the point. It'd be wiser to call all these latch-ons 'NVQs' rather than 'MBAs', since at least an NVQ is a practical skill.

Bah, humbug. Where's something red I can buy?

A redder shade of pale

I've realised I'm a sucker for a certain shade of red. Anything that comes in that colour, I've got to have it.

The colour is a sort of deep blood, like Bono's Amex card. My journey into red started with Audi. They do an A3 in this colour, and every time I see one I have to bite my wallet in half to prevent me dashing down to the showroom and signing the deal.

Then of course I got the Amex card itself. Now, there's a matching iPod, which means my decision to delay an ipod purchase lasted all of... three days.

Unfortunately, I've recently seen a laptop in this colour too, so I must take care NOT to pass Tottenham Ct Rd at any time this month. (Since I'm about to become a student my income is going to nosedive 80%, so even red WINE will be a restricted purchase.)

Amazingly for the modern world, I don't have any loans or credit card balances - but I've a horrible feeling this is going to change. And all because of a certain shade of red. Help!

Releasing my inner Samuel L Jackson

OK, so I'm not in the best of moods tonight. But it's the London Triathlon tomorrow, and I can't take up my place due to a knee injury, so I'm stomping around SE16 feeling somewhat out of sorts, and picking up a 750ml bottle of self-medication.

A car full of young males pulls up. "Hey mate... are you Kevin's Dad?"

I'm not sure what hurts more. That I could be related to anyone called 'Kevin', or that I could conceivably be a 'Dad'. Unfortunately, I have a tendency in such situations to release my inner action hero, and this time it happens to be Samuel L Jackson from his 'Pulp Fiction' era.

I explode with, 'KEVIN? That's a CHAV name, isn't it? Do I look like I could be related to a KEVIN? Do you see a gold chain around my neck? Do you see a baseball cap at an angle?'

(I'd have polished my prose, but the red traffic light won't last much longer, and anyway my wine's getting warm.)

There's nervous laughter from inside the (presumably Vauxhall Vectra, or perhaps that Korean thing with the big wing on the back and the long name consisting mostly of numbers.) 'So you're NOT Kevin's Dad then?!'

My inner character switches away from Samuel L, to the Matt Damon-tormenting corrupt cop from 'Departed'.

'That makes me sound like a C**T. Do I look like a C**T, boy? Are you calling me a C**T?'

The lights change and the guys in the back seat are applauding the guys in the front as the driver steps on the gas. The momentary theatre has ended. But I know I'll be replaying this scene in my mind for hours.

Sometimes, I wish I had less braggadoccio. And less Alpha aggression. But the street theatre requirement that adds buzz to London life has been satisfied again. For now.

Anyone up for a Big Kahunaburger?

The Simpsons: a shark well jumped

The Simpsons Movie at the O2 Dome.

It didn't live up to the TV shows, especially in earlier series. Indeed, the film didn't even score as a parody. It missed the whole point of the series, the very thing that made the yellow denizens of Springfield great.

The reason? Layers. Written by people with an understanding of philosophy, culture, and history - who knew their Barthe from their Bart - the best of the episodes always communicated on several levels. The floaty instant-water-added slapstick of the pratfalls and antics .... the darker level below, of ironic commentary on broader society ... and the deepest level, of fundamental human themes of hate and love and greed. It's these layers that made the simplistic artwork and hackneyed situations so addictive - ultimately, the episodes were Grand Stories, on a level with those written by that other Homer of ancient Greece.

The film, however, was written purely on the top level - just a succession of pratfalls. No deeper meaning, no sardonic sideswipes at the human condition. (Couldn't the doming of Springfield have been taken forward, into a metaphor for the post-911 Fortress America? Or Bart's naked skateboard ride a sideswipe at puritanical American society, where prostitution is illegal unless there's a video camera present, in which case it's protected by First Amendment?)

While it crushed some sacred cows - Bart's penis, the Homer/Marge sex scene, giving away the exact fictional location of Springfield - these are only really of delight to hardcore fans, lazy in-jokes rather than broad appeal. And the narrative wasn't tight enough. What, for example, happened to the pig? Couldn't the last scene have involved Homer munching a BLT? No Principal Skinner, and only a cursory Mr Burns without even a gay sight gag involving Smithers? And why didn't Colin have a bigger role; shouldn't there have been some sidestory around him and Lisa as the main narrative unfolded?

It was all very, very disappointing, lacking everything that made the TV show so great. It proved that the show is way past its prime. The shark has been jumped with a ten-metre vaulting pole.

Now if you'll excuse me - I'm just going off to bury myself in a bottle. That was truly depressing.

Cock and Mouth disease

Cockermouth Show has been cancelled due to Foot and Mouth. I bet they're glad they didn't get that headline mixed up when compositing!

Working lunch: it's all about crunch

After last night's overboozing, a virtuous lunch was in order to shoehorn some vits back into my system. Every time I have a healthy lunch I wonder why I even bother with the sandwiches from the local gourmet counter, good as its stuffed ciabattas are: a couple of handfuls of raw veg - carrot batons, cucumber, sugarsnaps - and an assortment of dips are all I need. Really should have picked up some cherry tomatoes and spring onions, too.

The existential angst of being a kidult

The Sunday Times has a great piece on 'kidults' - people approaching (or over) 40, yet who maintain the carefree lifestyles of teenagers.

It bit, because I'm definitely in the 'kidult' category. At 36, I play computer games, enjoy the dating game, go drinking on school nights and go backpacking in summer. It all still feels naughty and natural. Irresponsible and fun. I can't even do mid-life crises properly: when I tried to go over the edge, my brain just sproinged back into shape.

And of course, I'm going to University next month! I'm not even sure I'm staying stuck at 21: I may actually be going backwards. What will I do after my MBA? Return to High School or something?

That's it. I'm going to try hard to shed my kidult image.

Right after I pick up my skateboard from the mender's.