Journal

Our 2024 Christmas present to each other was to take advantage of cheap winter flights and go somewhere we’d never been for a weekend. We settled on Venice and I’m so glad we did.

We stayed at The Venice Times hotel which was a great choice – well located near Santa Lucia station at the north-west of the island city and friendly, quiet and cosy. It was a little cold while we were there as we’d expected but the sun still shone most of the time and it was warm enough for us to occasionally sit by the Grand Canal to enjoy a spritz or glass of wine.

Among the highlights of our trip were:

• Lunch at Osteria alle Testiere
• The Peggy Gugenheim Collection
• Seeing and hearing Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons played live by string ensemble Interpreti Veneziani at Chiesa San Vidal
• Rialto fish market
• walking the winding streets, through networks of canals
• beautiful bridges, stunning views and the occasional boat-bus
• Ritaridiente mezcal cocktail at Chet’s Bar, Dorsoduro

With more time we would have taken a trip to Burano. But maybe next time.

I purchased Scott’s course back in 2021 and immediately liked it, but hadn’t found the space to complete it until now. Anyway, I’m glad I have as it’s well structured and full of insights and practical tips. I’ll use this post to summarise my main takeaways.

Having completed the course I have much more rounded knowledge in the following areas:

• Why performance matters to users and business
• Performance-related metrics and “moments”: defining fast and slow
• Identifying performance problems: the tools and how to use them
• Making things faster, via various good practices and fixes

I’ll update this post soon to add some key bullet-points for each of the above headings.

I loved books like Tim Brown’s Flexible Typesetting, Jason Santa Maria’s On Web Typography and Richard’s own Web Typography. And I’ve used lots of their tips in my work. But I’ll be honest: they’re esoteric, complicated, hard to remember, changing rapidly with browser support… and the advice varies from one expert to the other. So I’m very grateful that Richard has provided this reusable stylesheet of great typographic defaults, making it easier to handle all the complexities of good web typography.

I’m testing out the Eleventy Image plugin. Here’s a post with an image which, if all goes well, will be converted by the plugin from source jpeg into lightweight avif and webp formats and the underlying code transformed from a basic img element into comprehensive modern HTML image syntax.

Glad I accepted the invite from Jason and Tom to attend their in-store event. After some free beer and pizza, Luke introduced Jordan from Tough Luck, an Instagram account spotlighting up-and-coming youth culture photographers. He interviewed Glasgow photographer Selina Paton (@glesgaonfilm). I ended up sat next to Selina’s Dad for that part!

A book entitled Tough Luck: You out tonight? is out now on Velocity Press. I got a lovely sense of enthusiasm for clubs and club culture from the guests, and enjoyed their analogy about film versus digital photography being a bit like vinyl versus digital audio – it’s just different and you can’t recreate the feel retrospectively.

Aside from Tom and Jason it was also nice to see and chat to folks like Lydia (and her friendly crew of edgelord neighbours), Dom C and Hayley.

That was a productive and fun weekend.

On Friday, Clair was meeting her mum and cousin in town so this was my quiet night in. I settled down to watch episode 4 of the The Penguin and ordered fish tikka from Kebabish – banging).

I started Saturday with a short Rudy-walk then it was off to Pete’s for some table-tennis practice. I’ve been playing crap recently and wanted to fix things. Pete was as generous as ever with his tips, and his advice on “the triangle” and "dialling up/down power" was really effective! By the end I was playing both forehand and backhand much better. After this I drove out to Kirky and collected my brother Martin to go for a chat over lunch at Nonna’s Kitchen. On the way home we popped into my niece Chloe’s new house and I enjoyed chasing wee Leo around his garden. At night Clair and I stayed in and watched Where the Crawdads Sing which was enjoyable enough.

On Sunday I had a really lovely autumnal walk around Pollokshields with Rudy and bumped into Mark M, then Dawn A, in the hood. In the evening I caught up with Mick M and, after a beer at Shilling and food at Rosa’s Thai we went to see Skinshape performing at Room Two. The music was great and the bassist was particularly impressive. I just think Will could do with belting the vocals out a tad louder. My favourite moment was hearing The Longest Shadow live.

On Saturday my friend Mick called to give me the shock news that our mutual friend, Kerso (Graham) had passed away. I’ve known Kerso for around 26 years, since I worked in Bomba records. He was a force of nature, a generous soul, a good guy. I and all his friends loved him.

Some of my favourite Kerso memories include him bounding into the shops where I worked (either Bomba or later Sound Control) on a Saturday afternoon, big broad smile and dressed immaculately, embodying the feeling that the weekend had landed. Or at club nights and parties or when he was on the decks, always a bundle of energy and a blur of hair! There was the time he bought me a signed copy of Neil Lennon’s biography for my birthday, having queued to get Lenny’s signature despite not being a fan himself (to put it lightly) but because he knew I’d love the gift. Then there’s his 40th birthday do at the Sub Club, a legendary party and where Clair and I met. I could go on, and on.

He was an integral part of many scenes – music, clothes, trainers, football and beyond – and had many, many friends. We’ll all miss him dearly.

Ethan assembles numerous technology articles, some of which are enthusiastic about generative AI and LLMs while others highlight political, social and health impacts and risks.

I now see why people love this part of the world. The dramatic coastline, beautiful deep blue Med, stunning buildings and balconies, incredible food scene, culture and history and buzz of activity… I could go on!

Here’s a list of some noteworthy things we did and places we visited on this amazing holiday.

Nice

Art, history, culture

We browsed the interesting open air photo exhibition at Place Garibaldi for the 80 years anniversary of Nice’s liberation from Nazi occupiers.

We visited the Musée de la Photographie Charles Nègre, where we saw the exhibitions Pourquoi m’as-tu abandonnée? by Bettina Rheims and You were not chosen by Marine Foissey.

After travelling to Saint-Jean Cap Ferra (celebrating “120 years heritage and history”) we visited the villa of Ephrussi de Rothschild. We wandered around the patio, rooms and gardens, stopping for breathtaking views of the bay. We finished at the French Garden at the back of the villa which, with its water jets, is pretty special.

Place du Pin and Rue Bonaparte, which we discovered towards the end of the trip, is a bustling little street of modern bars and restaurants. We didn’t have enough time to try too many places but enjoyed some lovely greek street food at Kalos.

Food and drink

Socca (chickpea flour, olive oil, pepper) at Therese’s food stand next to the photography museum. It’s tasty! I also tried La Pissaladière – a bread dough with white onions, stewed pepper salt anchovies and small olives niçoises.

While at Place Rossetti we had Salad Niçoises for lunch (when in Rome…) at restaurant La Claire Fontaine, then some ice cream (flavours like rhubarb and lemon) from Fenoccio café.

Movida, a little drinks and tapas bar on Quai des Etats-Unis with roof seating overlooking the bay. Serves good cocktails including fiery margarita.

Maison Margaux at Place Magenta for sea bass and rosé wine.

Maybe our best meal in Nice was at Le Bistrot on Rue St Honoré, part of Hotel du Couvent and discovered by Clair. We enjoyed a set meal of Oeufs Mimosa, Vitello Tonnato, Capellini a la sauge, Bavette a l’echalote and Clafoutis mirabelle. Everything about this place was interesting and stylish – building, decor, music, staff, food and drink.

Areas

Our hotel was near Place Masséna, with its beautiful, colourful buildings and art installation by Jaume Plensa featuring seven figures on pillars “in conversation”. The wider area include Rue Masséna and adjoining streets is great and we ate at various places. It gets busy at night, but always felt enjoyable and never too overcrowded.

The old town with its winding, cobbled streets, squares and scores of interesting bars and restaurants is fantastic.

Place Rossetti is a beautiful square with a fountain and Cathedral Saint-Marie, where we ate lunch while busking violinists did their thing. A vibe!

Villefranche-sur-mer was nice for a short visit. We might have taken a short boat trip there if we’d had time to organise it in advance.

Shopping

Antic Boutik is a brilliant clothes shop. I picked up a couple of bits before being given a complementary Merci Bien! t-shirt by the friendly assistant.

I visited two record shops: Kosimi the lovely Evrlst where I spotted for the first time a physical copy of the Apogee & Perigree LP although they knew their prices so I resisted the urge.

Accommodation

Hotel Seize: friendly staff and great old-fashioned elevator.

Miscellaneous

parks The city bus tour we took on Day One served as a great initial orientation, taking us along the grand hotels and casinos of Promendade des Anglais then past the Russian Orthodox church and musicians‘ district up to the train station, continuing into Place Garibaldi, Port Lympia and even onto Villefranche-sur-mer and Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

Other places we visited / info we picked up

Our lovely hosts at Hotel L’Esprit D’Azur passed on a digital map guide for Nice with categories for museums, free parks and museums, restaurants, indoor activities and around Nice.

La Casita in Antibes provided one of our favourite meals of the trip. It’s on a busy little street just down from the market. I had John Dory while Clair had Boulettes Viande.

La Petite Garoupe restaurant in Antibes – a stunning location on a stormy night. We had just received bad news and raised a glass to our friend.

L’Elephant Bleu in Antibes, a Thai restaurant on Boulevard d'Aguillon

Mick had been saying for a couple of years that I should join him, sister Jenny and brother-in-law Barry on one of their jaunts to the annual Spirit of Alba festival at Kirkintilloch Town Hall. I’d always felt it’d be a nice opportunity for us to hang out (with the added bonus of whisky tasting) so yesterday I took him up on the offer.

Last time I was at Kirky town hall was probably for a disco as a teenager and I must say the venue and surrounding area are looking nice after recent work. It’s cool that my hometown has a whisky festival given its historic role in whisky’s global story – see Rita Cowan and the Japanese brand Nikka for more. It’s also quite the turnaround given Kirky was a dry town til the 70s.

I don’t have the constitution to go straight into the hard stuff so my first drink was Das ist ein lagerbier, a Helles from Upfront Brewing. It turns out that amiable owner Jake lives near me in the southside. It was then onto whisky tasters from The Glasgow Distillery’s lovely 1770 range, Angels’ Nectar and JG Thomson.

I also tried a couple of rums including a Dorchadas (from East Neuk Spirit Co) which they served as a shot with their own apple mixer. (Their website also handily contains lots of cocktail-making tips). That was so nice that I was close to buying a bottle as a souvenir of the day. But instead I plumped for Cihuatan Indigo, a delicious rum from El Salvador and Jenny’s top tip.

It was great to hang out with everyone and we capped the night by walking to Jenny and Barry’s lovely house for a curry. There was a colourful conclusion to the night but I’ll keep that particular tale to myself.

Sláinte to all concerned!