Scottish Parliament – no icon, no Ikea

Image from Wikimedia Commons

During my farewell trip to Estonia I made a stop in the UK and visited the various parliament buildings in Great Britain. One of the interesting and frankly quite strange ones was the Scottish Parliament building in Edinburgh.

It is quite difficult for me to decide whether I liked the building complex that is well over-packed with symbolism and Scottish cultural references, which are an achievement in their own right as the architect, who died before he could explain what he meant by the building, was not Scottish. It feels as if someone has bulk ordered some modern symbolism and applied it all to the building without discrimination.

My ambiguity – apart from my aversion to symbols that would be enough to fill a Dan Brown trilogy – probably stems from the fact that I was not expecting a new, modern building for a Parliament that is centuries old (although not in existence for 300 years). The building itself is quite functional from the inside (with bare cement walls in places and a very big and roomy debating chamber) and very strange from the outside. Only, if one would look down on the building from the nearby mountain would he discover that the building is supposed to symbolize the petals of a flower; however, he would probably have a hard time realizing this as the grass on the roof makes it difficult to make out the shape.

Edwin Morgan puts it quite elegantly and accurately in his poem:

Is it not a mystery? The parts cohere, they come together
like petals of a flower, yet they also send their tongues
outward to feel and taste the teeming earth.
Did you want classic columns and predictable pediments? A
growl of old Gothic grandeur? A blissfully boring box?
Not here, no thanks! No icon, no IKEA, no iceberg, but
curves and caverns, nooks and niches, huddles and
heavens syncopations and surprises. Leave symmetry to
the cemetery.
But bring together slate and stainless steel, black granite
and grey granite, seasoned oak and sycamore, concrete
blond and smooth as silk – the mix is almost alive – it
breathes and beckons – imperial marble it is not!

Debating chamber. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

More pictures at the Parliament website.

Dinosaurs Were Made Up by the CIA to Discourage Time Travel

I wish the band Math the Band would have come up with something less electronic and more fun/clever with such a good title...

The long way home

I am finally back in Budapest, after quite an exhausting journey that has taken many turns and twists. After 5 hours of sleep and some last-minute packing I was on my way to Tallinn airport witnessing the snow covered plains and forest of Estonia and the sunset at around 4 pm.

At the airport I was among the first to check in, which was not much help as my plane was an hour late, meaning that I was going to miss my connection in Frankfurt. Finally, we landed just as my second plane was supposed to take off, and I was taken by the airport bus to a gate about a kilometer away from the gate I was supposed to be at half an hour earlier

Fortunately, the second plane was delayed as well so I could make it (after covering the 1km distance between my arrival and departure points in record time, they moved my gate much closer). In the end we took off twenty minutes after we were supposed to land already and had a smooth ride.

After the pilot missed the bridge connecting to the terminal by about a metre and had to order the anxious passengers back to their seats, I was finaly at home again:

Look at the Birdie

I just finished reading Kurt Vonnegut's latest posthumous collection of short stories, entitled after one of the stories Look at the Birdie and in doing so I think I managed to read almost every book of his. The collection includes 14 previously unpublished stories.

These stories have the markings of typical Vonnegut works, with black humour, science fiction and absurd situation. I liked the stories, some of them more than the others, and I must admit, there was one or two that I did not get. Either way, I recommend the book to everyone who likes Vonnegut's style and earlier books.

Now that I have finished reading, I can start boxing up my books and sending them home...

And Another Thing...

I just finished reading Eoin Colfer's addition to the Hitchhiker's Guide universe, the book entitled And Another Thing.
The book written as an appendix in the Guide to the entry on the Hitchiker's Guide is a welcome addition to the trilogy (of five) even if it cannot be the same if the same author would have finished the series.
Eoin Colfer in my opinion has understood well the dynamics of the story and has come up with a plausible continuation and introducing some interesting new themes.
And Another Thing has a similar kind of language to the H2G2, yet without such memorable phrases as "mindbogglingly", "almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea", and "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
There are, however, many excerpts from the Guide to provide background on some of the developments of the earlier books (which are quite unnecessary for the real Hitchiker's fans) and for comic relief. These replicate the style of Douglas Adams but are a little too numerous and a tad bit weak in some cases.
Still, I would recommend this book as a fun and light read and a nice way to honour the work of a great author.

Paterei Prison

Pictures from Paterei prison that was operational until 2005, and now serves as a "culture park" for tourists, parties and weddings in Tallinn.

Pictures from Helsinki

Just a quick selection of the pictures I like the most from my August trip to Helsinki (including the World Heritage site, Suomenlinna).