Blogging from Brussels

Half a pig and dijonaise sauce - yummy

Spring time in the heart of Europe

I like Brussels, which is just as well as it seems to be about the only place I ever get to go on work trips. It's raining and gray, but it is still so much more "European" than Helsinki. Everywhere there is a bar or café that you want to go into, or even sit outside despite the drizzle. I'm sure the women of Brussels are disproportionately attractive as well, although maybe that's just me enjoying one aspect of the diversity of a real European - indeed global - metropolis, compared to which, Helsinki look rather provincial and boringly monocultural. The beer is much, much, much (and indeed one more-) much better as well.

I'm starting to realise there are two cities as well, Brussels and "Brussels". The first is the biggest city in Belgium, historically interesting, racially diverse reflecting Belgium's imperial past, and in places a little bit shabby. It is a normal, large western European city with all the advantages and problems that this implies. And then there is "Brussels", which is where the EU lives. It predominantly exists in the minds of the people of Europe who collectively tend to think of it as a large trough in which their elected and unelected leaders go to try and get their snouts into. For national politicians around Europe it is the place to blame or hide behind dependent on what is politically expedient at that moment. But "Brussels" is a real place as well - a few blocks around the Schuman metro stop in particular. In fact, maybe it isn't real, it might actually be hyperreal. It is populated by "Europeans" who tend to be amongst the best and the brightest (and most ambitious) that their home countries produce. I'm sure these people are genetically slightly different - a little bit taller on average, a little bit better looking. Most certainly better dressed - they are the type of people who you see in the adverts in in-flight magazines. This is perhaps because they are the type of people who buy their clothes in the airport boutiques?

Anyway - I like both Brussels and "Brussels". Except for the rain.

Climate Changed

Yesterday, I passed a somewhat sad milestone, and with a quick trip to Rollarit have now rock climbed in Finland during every month of the year. Had you told me this even three years ago, I wouldn't have believed it. Even last winter, although the winter was the shortest anyone remembers, still on this weekend last year, late February traditionally the depths of the winter, the weather was like this. I particularly remember that weekend because my legs got so cold I went out and bought some Goretex sallopettes in the end of season sale at a local outdoors shop. Then of course having made that investment, the next weekend everything warmed up and started melting and I never used them. This winter I've only worn them once so far (Marmot Randonee and they work great if anyone cares) but despite getting them at 50% off, so far they haven't been a great investment in the amount of usage I got out them!

Your's truly approaching the rather stylish crux of "Lanttumaakari", F5c

This route has a delicate step-through that makes a desperate move feel easy if done right. When you do it, it feels so nice. I had forgotten how much fun rock climbing can be.

Tony on the tricky 6a "Liidi Master".

My achievement of the day was finding a weakboy-cheeky-Egyptian method of doing the crux of this route static, allowing me to do the move without resorting to the somewhat alarming dyno-lunge-lurch method that Tony used. But then he's stronger than me so probably goes with Ben Moon's famous quote of "technique is no alternative to power"! Oddly, I can think of two other 6as that are harder than this one in Southern Finland, and one 6b that is easier.

Tony cruise the horribly undergraded "Rullaportaat" 5- (VS 4c)

And again.

Sunset over Keha III (Ring Road III) - some civil engineering that somewhat spoils the outlook from the crag.

The temperature was about 5 oC and out of the wind and in the sun, it felt really quite civilised. It is actually snowing outside now, although somewhat half-heartedly, so at least the weather is trying to look wintery, but they say that is going to melt this afternoon...

al-Qaeda as "a post-modern pastiche"

This week's "Start the Week" on Radio 4 was a cracker, but Prof. Madawi Al Rasheed was particularly great. I don't think I have heard of her before but her description of the political-clerical balance in Saudi Arabia was excellent - brief, pithy, but completely convincing. It is somehow comforting that such smart people are around - truly "one cheerful rational voice amidst the din of mourners and polemics". When I first started reading about al-Qaeda seriously in 2003 I couldn't get how seemingly differing ideological strands came together - Saudi Wahhabism, Egyptian political Islam, the early liberal Salafism and the later reactionary Salafism. There didn't seem to be much coherence to it. So Prof. Al Rasheed's description of al-Qaeda being "a post-modern pastiche" of an organisation is wonderful: there is no one ideology but rather a fuzzy mess of shared agendas and localised co-option.

I'm going to have to get Michael Burleigh's new book as well "Blood and Rage: A Cultural History of Terrorism", it sounds very interesting. His quote from Baader-Meinhof: "we half read a lot theory, that we fully understood", and his description of a consistency over time amongst very different terrorist groups: "a moral squalor" are alone enough to make me want to read it.

Icey Manoeuvres in Dark

If you don't get the title, you're not of a certain age I guess...
Ice climbing at Helsinki Airport last night. Thanks to Tony for taking the pictures of me climbing - and for working out how to use my camera far better than I have managed so far.

Corner Climb WI3

Traffic passing in the background spoils the ambience somewhat, but it is the huge Airbus taking off for Japan and passing overhead at maybe 50 or 100 metres that really makes communication tricky!

Me, trying to see my feet

Helsinki ice climbers might like to know that we met both airport security and the police last night and both took a very civilised and common sense attitude. The security guy just asked us not to cross the fence at the top of the cliffs, which we hadn't anyway and you don't need to at all, and not to climb further west than bridge with runway landing lights on it. But again there isn't any need to as all the good lines are east of it, so complying with their requests is no problem at all. The police on finding out Simon was Australian, wanted mainly to know if he had ever seen snow and ice before and to tell him "normally" it would be -20 and 50 cms of snow at this time of year!The police officer was a bit annoyed that he hadn't actually got to watch us climbing as we were packing up by the time he swung by, and I got the impression he might have been persuaded to have go had we still had the top-rope in place.

The weather, climate change and the British Climbing press

I keep moaning about how different the weather is this winter, but according to Helsingin Sanomat we should expect more of the same in the future:

Climate change brings mild and rainy winter weather - and it is here to stay. This year January in Helsinki was 4.8°C warmer than usual

It's sunny today which is nice, but it is still rather sad. I got an email from the well-known British climbing journalist, Colin Wells, last week after I had been moaning about the weather, and he said: "[all] rather bad news for us ice-lovers! Still, as quite possibly the last generation to be able to experience such things regularly, at least we've still got the occasional opportunity to grab some icicle action, for that I'm grateful", which is perhaps the best attitude to take. Colin, who writes for Climb Magazine, deserves credit for a couple of years ago writing a serious and thoughtful piece on how climbers are noticing the changing climate more than others, as routes like the Diamond Couloir on Mt. Kenya have dissappeared in the space of a generation. He noted in the email that how some of the people he interviewed back then, are now taking an even more depressed view as things seem to be changing even fast than was predicted then.

Whilst mentioning climate change and the climbing press, I should also mention the guest editorial in last months Climber Magazine. It was written by Ray Wood, the climbing photographer and followed previous editor Bernard Newman's anti wind power line that runs "they're just symbolic, they don't help the enviroment and they spoil the view when I go climbing." On UKC this debate has raged backwards and forwards for years, but it seems to me that the engineers who really look into this tend to be sceptical towards this scepticism. But Ray Wood's piece is one of defeatism, where he even criticises energy efficient light bulbs on the basis of them containing mercury. Perhaps Mr. Wood doesn't realise that mercury is released from power stations in the fumes in far larger amounts. He should perhaps give this rather good explainer from Slate magazine a read, and research a bit more before pushing disinformation through the magazine.

Mean... but funny.

You can tell that the photographer had to get down on his knees to get the angle right on this one.

From the Economist where, as ever, they have the best photo captions - in this case "conflicting signals for McCain".

Weekend climbing photo essay: Tony scares us with death-defying antics

A slightly wintery Finland (all photos 'clickable' for larger resolution versions)

My mate and regular climbing partner, Tony, has been accusing me of being far too nice to him recently. Being English, he is hopeless at taking well deserved compliments - therefore just to make him feel a bit better this post will be filled with personal attacks on him, and particularly on his ice climbing competence. The weather had been sub-zero on the south coast for some of last week and we were desperate to get out and climb after two weekends of watching the rain come down, so decided to chance going back up to Valkeala to see if there was some ice on the crags.

Tony fails to make a confidence inspiring start

We staged a small Commonwealth invasion of Lintojanvuori, with a main force of three Englishmen, plus an Australian adding special forces support. I was quite disappointed to see no other cars at the pull-off, and indeed we didn't see any other climbers all day. Perhaps most other ice climbers have given up on this awful winter, and are just going to the wall to get strong for summer? We did the 'carpark fall' first - it was harder climbing than when we did three weeks ago, with fewer features for your feet, but it was frozen to the rock behind this time and felt generally a lot safer. Tony tried leading it first, but after battling to get the first screw in without much success and generally making a complete hash of it, he backed off and I led it instead.

Simon gamely pretends he thinks this is as fun as steep, sunkissed limestone sport climbing

Tony then seconded the line and we top-roped another steeper line on the same fall. Then we wondered along the rest of the cliff to see what other ice had formed. Jody did his first lead of the winter, and Simon followed, the same route as Tony and I had done on the last visit (pic above), with Jody managing to dislodge a large brick of ice onto his face whilst halfway up. Some blood was involved, but it wasn't exciting enough to deserve a photo. I climbed an exciting little route next to it which involved a narrow ice flow up into a little niche two thirds of the way up the cliff, then exciting bridging on very thin ice to escape it. After this, Tony announced he was going to lead the steepest and longest route on the cliff - a 20 mtr pillar of vertical and near-vertical ice.

Tony gets stuck in, Jody's facial expressions suggest this isn't going to end well

After Tony's, frankly, hopeless attempt at the first route of the day and subsequent moaning about not having had any chance to lead ice this winter and get into the swing of things, this seemed a somewhat ambitious, possibly even rash, target. Tony did nothing to alleviate these concerns by looking at the flatish and not too rock-strewn ground at the base of the ice and commenting that even if the worst came to the worst, the landing zone "didn't look that bad". He also elected to borrow my tools and lead it leashless just to add to the challenge. Using the spurious excuse of having the best camera, I elected myself expedition photographer and told Jody to belay so I could get some shots. This gave me the opportunity to run a safe distance away in the likely seeming scenario that at some point in the next few minutes, one Englishman complete with flailing, razor sharp ice tools and crampons would come hurtling groundwards from some way up the pillar. Simon wandered around looking much like what a slightly confused Australian sport climber at a small Finnish ice-covered crag would look like.

Tiger Tony shows that fingerboard training pays off

Tony attacked the lower, narrow and plumb-vertical part of the pillar with élan, and made good progress to about femur-snapping height where he decided, sensibly enough, to place a screw. This did not go so smoothly, but eventually got clipped and we all breathed a sigh of relief. A body-length of so higher, the next screw also looked like something of a battle to place, with Tony hand-swapping a couple of times - suggesting that he couldn't hang on one-handed long enough to get the screw in fully with other. This made the process even more tenuous than it normally is. But with the protection arranged he powered on upwards towards what appeared like the last vertical part of the climb.

Nearly there...

Here he stopped to place the last screw that would be needed to protect the finishing moves. This did not go well at all. Tony's pumped forearms meant he had to keep swapping which hand he was hanging on by, whilst trying to place the screw with other. When climbing with leashes this is when you really let the leash take the strain and whilst it might hurt like hell, at least you know you aren't going to just fall off your tool. But leashless, as you feel the lactic acid fill your arm, you have no choice but to swap if you don't want to fall and this means that Tony was at times trying to place a screw he had started on his right with his left hand, leading to all sorts of contortions. The number of times he was swapping his hands on the tool, whilst still making limited progress at getting the screw in made those of us on the ground really rather nervous that this was all about to end in tears. I still remember from last year the feeling of real helplessness as you feel your hands start to uncurl off the handles of your tools no matter how hard you will them not to. Then there was a muffled curse as the screw touched rock behind the ice. Things were really not looking so good now as Tony had remove that screw, find a stubby one on his harness and then place that instead. This was after much wobbling achieved, and he quickly asked for Jody to take, so he could rest on the rope. Normally when your climbing partner has got some crucial gear in and then asks you take, you might ask "are you sure?", willing them onwards to do the route clean without rests, but this time even those of us down on the ground seemed quite relieved that Tony could just rest safely now. No clean ascent is worth getting really hurt for. After a bit of rest and getting another solid screw in, Tony blasted up the last few steep metres of the route to the top. Not perfect, but a really ballsy attempt. We all did it on the top rope afterwards and it felt really physical and hard work - particularly with the narrowness of the bottom pillar never allowing you to really spread the weight onto your feet. The thought of leading it was terrifying.

The DMM chaps will be pleased to see that their gear is still being thoroughly tested

The pic above is just to show that I'm taking my duties as a gear tester for UKClimbing.com seriously, and we're still putting the DMM Shadows and Phantoms through their paces. I'm finding that although the Phantoms are small krabs they don't seem noticeably harder to handle, with at least thin gloves on, than any of my older krabs. A good thing for winter climbers to know, perhaps. If you look carefully at the photo you might also notice a DMM Shadow being used for something that DMM might not have envisaged themselves - they make ace ice screw racks as part of the great Swedish DIY ice screw rack system. The smooth keylock gate system makes them particularly good for this purpose, whilst they weigh a lot less than other various old keylock krabs that I have.

Post-match analysis at the petrol station

That was quite enough excitement for one day, so the remaining daylight was spent checking out another crag to see if it had icefalls on it, before adjourning for tea at a nearby petrol station. Not too bad a day in the end at all, particularly after relatively unpromising weather.

Flying business class to the sixth form disco

A few years back I had a cool job working for the UN Environment Programme. The pay was pretty crap and the work was hard, but I guess you are expected to do it for the love of the environment or some such. As an "adviser" to the unit chairman (i.e. dogsbody) I had do everything from -literally- the photocopying, to meeting a Prime Minister, albeit of a very small and unimportant country. But the thing that made up for that, at least for me, was that traveling a lot at very short notice we had to fly business class. I had never flown business before and I never went any further than Pristina, so never got to go on one of the big plane where the chair turns into a bed and you get a personal DVD player and all that cool stuff. But you did get more chance to stretch, take more stuff on as hand luggage, nicer food, wine and get on and off quicker. You still get to the same place, but the overall experience is nicer.

So I caved into the peer group and marketing pressure and bought an iPod. It is very pretty and particularly as I already have a MacBook, it all colour coordinates nicely - which as we all know, is one of the most important functions to look for in an MP3 player. But I'm starting to get Mac's genius. You take it out of the box, plug it into your computer and all these things start to happen. Smooth things. White things. Things with rounded contours. Things that don't go "ping" but click in quiet and comforting ways. Messages are short and to the point and don't use words like "drivers", "program files", "installation error". Instead it gently suggests how it could be useful to you. And within ten minutes of plugging it in, I'm unplugging it and ready to listen to 1.7 days of music and podcasts. If only life could all be so simple. So more expensive than the alternative options that will still play your music and podcasts, but the overall experience is nicer.

I immediately went to the "my favourites" playlist and proceeded to dance round the kitchen as I did the washing up, like a beer-ed up 18 year old at the sixth form disco.

And if anyone wants to compare playlists - of my CDs that I have so far ripped to iTunes (not actually that many due to having a small MP3 player before) this is the "my favourites" list. Make of it what you will!

• The Eton Rifles 3:59 The Jam The Sound Of The Jam Rock
• Tomorrow 3:43 James The Best Of James Alternative & Punk
• The Road Is Not Your Only Friend 2:38 Jeff Lang Whatever Makes You Happy Blues
• Sometimes 5:19 My Bloody Valentine Lost In Translation Soundtrack
• Can't Stop 4:31 Red Hot Chili Peppers By The Way Rock
• North Country Boy 4:02 Charlatans Melting Pot Alternative & Punk
• Hoobaale 5:05 K'naan The Dusty Foot Philosopher Hip Hop/Rap
• Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill 4:17 Lauryn Hill The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill R&B