Art, but not as we know it, Jim.

With kids happily water-based, and wife chatting away with friends I was able to nick off for a few minutes with new camera at El Gouna. The boys have a great pop song ontheir ipods that has a line "put a doiiyngg on it" - well this is the artisitic version - put it into black and white and call it art!

My collection of photos from the shallow mud bank at El Gouna.

Probably due to my geological interests I find ripples fascinating at least geometrically. The shallow bank at El Gouna becomes emergent at low tide and has great sets of symmetrical ripples which when the light drops in the evening have great shadows.....

As the tide came in shallow wind-driven ripples were pushed towards the coast, tracking across the extensive bank at walking pace. I came across this small rock getting unindated by the rising tide. I used quite a high contrast for the print, I like the shadow patte

rns of the wave fronts....

Heres a close up of the ripples, beautiful diffraction patterns of the waves trend interfering with the wind trend.

I had a play around in Photoshop with a couple of images adding filters and modifying colours and contrast. This first one I like a lot, it looks like seismic data that the oil industry use to image the subsurface (its actually a photo of the sand bank looking towards a distant flag).

Last one is a ripple photo that I have filtered in various ways (mainly "plaster") - give a nice texture.

Taking on the system.....

Following our hols we took the rental car back to HRW, admitted a little sandy inside, in need of a clean but nothing more. Then we got into an argument with very abrupt chap at return that a very small dent (miniscule was my description) was ours and required a 50 quid penalty. After arguing for 10 mins, then with Mrs Bolshi Supervisor "Ive heard it all before" and the plane waiting on the tarmac we paid up, I did my trick of taking their names, asking for superiors names and numbers and customer services and we hopped on the plane.

Frankly I forgot all about, the damage was not spotted at check out by Mrs T (no one would have) so I kissed my 50 goodbye. Then company sent me one of those post-rental questionaires...."how did we do?" So we let em have both barrels, telling them I paid but was not happy and that I was more unimpressed with the way we were treated.

Eventually I got a further email from Mrs Snotty in Customer Services, with pdfs of the check out slip signed by Mrs T and the quote from Bashem and Bodgeit Repairs saying it would indeed cost 50 bigguns to repair.

Not one to take this lying down I replied back, wishing my 50 quid good bye but telling customer services they might like to read the letters of complaint once in a while as there was no mention of our service - which was the main thrust of our complaints.

Anyway somehow that Whinge got to Mr Everso Concerned, a senior customer manager who agreed they did not address our concerns and as a gesture of goodwill refunded 50 notes.

Funny how lifes small victories against the big corporations make you feel good. Both boys on sleepover so we are going to blow our money on a Thai meal down in Cairo....!

moral of the story - don't ask for your customers opinions.....:-)

Bocelli at the pyramids

Last night we went to watch Andrea Bocelli at the pyramids - expensive but magnificent - almost as magnificent as the organisation of the traffic after the end! God bless Egypt and the Giza traffic police!

El Gouna for First Eid

For first Eid we had a few days down on the red sea at a place called El Gouna. Now there are a lot of downsides to being an expat - but being 4 hours from places El Gouna is not one of them!

Biggest loser part II

You may remember Mrs T and myself and locked in a battle of reducing bulge. The first two weeks of our 6 week marathon saw us loose 3.4 and 3.2kg respectively. This weeks weigh in has seen a dramatic twist and Mrs T pulling back my lead, both of us equal on 4.3kg lost. Two weeks to go and all to play for, she offered me a chocolate cake last night - but I can resist these underhand tactics. Exercise regime has gone into overdrive (2x football training, 1 football session, 1 gym session) already in three days......you get into the ring with P, get ready for a fight.....(she claims Im competitive).

Remember the scales are your friend........

The Ring of Death just got safer....

well, sort of. The Cairo ring road, as anyone who has travelled on it, is a dangerous place with Egypt being top of the list in major countries road death statistics and many of this on the ring road. The Cairo ring road is where ill-maintained transport can get up to speed and collides (both literally and metaphysically) with a poorly trained (if any) driver nation. Coupled with a scant regard for self or others safety results in a rather scary ride.

In an effort to curb these statistics the Egyptians have installed speed cameras (whilst the brits are actually taking them out), and low and behold they seem to be doing some good. Driving along towards Maadi we noticed its was not the normal hectic wacky races, with regular bouts of breaking at certain points. Had we woken up in some parallel universe? No, the speed cameras were in place and apparently working (they flashed at least) and people at work were getting ticketed. Only issue now is the screech of tyres when everyone but the truck behinds you slows down!- but heck its an improvement.

The Biggest Loser

Things have been hectic around these parts as we try and get into some routine after the long leave. Major events happening over the last couple of weeks, school starts, kids all get sick, soccer sign-up and P gets roped into coach again, and assistant coach for Ts team, plus its nearly the end of Ramadan so soon the Eid Feast will start.

We get 3 days off work plus the weekend which is great, so we are heading to the Red Sea, west side this time to a place called El Gouna, close to Hurghada, with a bunch of friends so should be a good laugh, staying at the Movenpick and taking the golf clubs. P has been out for 18 holes ("played like a teletubbie on ecstacy") already but as you can see from the description he seems to have forgotten how to play.

In the mean time Mrs T and P having gourged on pork and cream teas, indian curries and fish n chips in the UK are on a health drive plus lose weight campaign over 6 weeks. We had an official weigh in and have just finished the first 2 weeks of the programme (we are making it up as we go along). As we are both uber-competitive its become a family biggest loser, P took the honours with 3.4kg vs 3.2kg lost, but Mrs T lost more % body weight - 4 weeks to go before the winner is crowned, or the argument begins......

(Im now off for a secret run!)