Windy and wet on Benvane today

Spent yesterday looking for cherry blossom in a gray and rainy Pingding village outside Taipei. There's also a network of paths on the banks of the old water supply canals.

Some pictures from Shimen Reservoir near Taoyuan in Taiwan. The area is beautiful, and seemingly not very popular with tourists, hence not too crowded.

Hot springs in Beitou

A divine message in Rennes for the POPL conference.

Looking at a "finalised" version of a paper. The good news is that Elsevier fixed 95% of the typesetting errors they introduced as part of the editing process...

1/ I think the greatest success of the far-right hasn't been in marketing racism for its own sake, but rather deceptively positioning of it as an effective if perhaps distatestful answer to major policy problems. Like it's a necessary evil you have to swallow if you want to address the big issues.

The former Consulate of Italy in Glasgow is for sale for £2.5m. The outside looks fairly ordinary but it is the interior that lives up to the title. www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/1...

Every year, our neighbourhood seem to set up an advent calendar with a new decoration appearing at a random house each day. I have no idea how they coordinate so they don't all do the same number -- so far we have not been invited to take part (probably based on our mediocre Christmas decorations).

Hoar frost in King's Park

George Square Christmas Market.

Fun (?) fact: with the current 25% off interrail passes, a year of unlimited 1st class train travel in all of Europe (4 * 3 month global pass, £3060) is now cheaper than a year of unlimited 2nd class train travel between Glasgow and Edinburgh (Scotrail season ticket, £3852).