Europe 2011 - 54 days, 54 pictures

A week with Funnelback UK, five weeks as a Professeur Invité at IRIT in Toulouse, a week's holiday in Cornwall and the Cotswolds and most of a final week with Funnelback UK.

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01 - Edinburgh: It must be about to rain, since you can see the castle.
02 - Our Guy in Edinburgh
03 - Air traffic control at EDI airport. I'm sure there's a wee joke about Scotch and Thistles but ah couldnae think ae it.
04 - Went to Cambridge for a meeting that evaporated. But I saw the Corpus [Christie] Clock, paid for by the inventor of the cordless kettle.
05 - Stuart and I went with Ben, Tash and Reyne to eat at Spitalfields market.
06 - Never a cross word: The Cruciform Bldg at University College London.
07 - A rotunda in a park in Toulouse, whose entry ...
08 - is guarded by two ferocious bitches.
09 - The Eglise St Sernin (TLS): Scene of open-mat breakdancing during the Fête de la Musique.
10 - Guillaume Cabanac took me to Pech David for a view over the river Garonne and the city of Toulouse. A major factory explosion in the past cleared the way for a huge biomedical research institute across the river.
11 - The Jury in a PhD examination at another university in Toulouse. Sitting in the audience turned out to be useful experience because I later found myself on such a panel at IRIT.
12 - The fountain in Place Wilson. What is he thinking? (TLS)
13 - The Capitole building contains the Mairie and the Opera (TLS)
14 - In Sauveterre for the annual Fête we also visited Samaran home of the museum of foie gras.
15 - A gastronomic lunch in the village of Sauveterre.
16 - IRIT. Institut de Recherche en Informatique, Toulouse. My shared office was on the top floor.
17 - The Canal du Midi (linking Mediterranean and Atlantic) passes very close to IRIT...
18 - ... and is a lovely place for a walk or a ride.
19 - Some residents of Toulouse enjoying a performance during the Fête de la Musique received many male invitations to come down for a drink. I think the wrong person may be in the process of accepting.
20 - One of the dozens of acts which sprang up in the streets during the Fête de la Musique to entertain a roaming audience of 100 thousand or more.
21 - Toulouse rooftops as seen from the top of the spiral carpark at Carmes. Just the place for a night on the tiles.
22 - Rue de Malcousinat (TLS) - Our apartment is the one with the blue shutters on the first floor.
23 - Sometimes beautiful choral music pervaded the courtyard behind our apartment, coming from the Ostal d'Occitania a few doors down.
24 - Mohand! He invites me to Toulouse and then wants to throw me in his pool.
25 - Mohand and Hayat.
26 - Uhh, which country are we in?
27 - A race through the old city ends at the Capitole.
28 - Do I detect a certain disapproval of photography?
29 - A weekend jaunt to Carcassone.
30 - The guard dog at a restaurant outside Carcassonne. Q: What do you get when you cross a dog and a well-trained seal? A: a very good deal.
31 - One afternoon in Carcassonne certainly deserves more than one photo.
32 - The religious icon on the top floor is actually an umbrella. (TLS)
33 - If you wanted to buy this house in Toulouse, you're too late.
34 - A weekend in Lyon. Double word play on a grand scale.
35 - Lyon has a history of trading in silk and Kathy couldn't resist the sales pitch from a very experienced salesperson.
36 - « Taxpayers of Lyon, we will eventually pave your streets with gold. The project will, naturally, start at the Mairie.»
37 - In front of the Mairie there was a large scale promotion of the delights of Italy. Maybe the magic would have been more apparent from the other side of the fence.
38 - Eating breakfast at les Halles in Lyon. Just before this photo was taken the internationally famous chef Paul Bocuse came and chatted to our waiter.
39 - The Garonne and one of it's several perforated bridges. (TLS)
40 - Whisked away to meet with ETHZ in Zürich.
41 - I had a chat with the founder of a search start-up in his bolthole in the former premises of les Musicophages, just around the corner from our apartment.
42 - Flew back to Heathrow and stayed the night in a hotel room with this view from the window.
43 - Time to swan off after a lunchstop during a wearying drive from Heathrow to the Lizard (Cornwall). The barman showed us that a 50 pound note actually hides a picture of the Queen's bum.
44 - We rented Longships cottage (2nd from the right) at the Lizard lighthouse, southernmost point in England.
45 - At the old Lifeboat station on Lizard Point, the only boat we found was relatively unimpressive but at least had a good name.
46 - The scar up the cliff at Housel Bay is where the submarine cable from Spain made landfall (in 1872). Wireless huts operated by Guglielmo Marconi are just nearby.
47 - The Cornish coastal path has a lot of blooming plants.
48 - A lady in Cadgwith (a beautiful fishing village we walked to) had just thrown a bucket of fish scraps from the days catch. Those birds have got guts!
49 - Bibury Court Hotel (Cotswolds). Our booking was accepted but all their rooms were full, so they made alternative arrangements for us.
50 - Next to Diana memorial, Kensington Gardens (London). Maybe it's another Diana storker.
51 - Outside the Royal Geographical Society HQ. And ignorant people say the royal family serve no useful purpose!!!
52 - Phil Widdop (Funnelback UK sales) at IWMW2011 at Reading University. In serious contemplation, while ...
53 - ... his GM Matt Taylor ponders how to beat the competition, ...
54 - ... now that they are within easy striking range on the adjacent stand!