h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My new housemate turned up on Wednesday morning last week. He’s a visiting PhD student from the Max Planck Institute in Germany. He’s originally from Cameroon, but has lived in Germany for the past six years or so and completed all of his higher education there. He’ll be in Bath living with us for the next three months or so until the end of December. I spent a little time helping him find his way around the city, figure out the buses and showing him where the supermarket is. He seems fairly well settled in now, but after moving to Germany aged just 18 not knowing anyone or even speaking the language especially well, I guess spending three months in England (his English is perfect) must seem like a cakewalk.

The weekend was pretty quiet. My girlfriend was out with her housemates for a birthday party on Friday night so I had a long overdue night in. On Saturday I went for a long run, which was far harder than it ought to have been. I was about an hour from home when I suddenly felt absolutely awful. I just ran out of steam. I think I underestimated how much Bristol Half took out of me the weekend before.

On Sunday morning, my girlfriend and I were supposed to be driving to a dance competition in Surrey to watch her Canadian cousin dance. Unfortunately we got a phone call on Sunday morning (at about 7:30AM!) saying that his coach was ill, that they couldn’t get to the competition without him and so he wouldn’t be dancing. So instead we spent the day lazing about and relaxing.

Missing the dance competition did mean that we got to watch the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon which turned out to be a stroke of luck because it was an absolute cracker. Without a doubt it was the most exciting race of the season so far. Changeable weather in qualifying meant that the late runners (those who finished near the front in Brazil) had to qualify in the worst conditions and all ended up at the back of the grid. The upside down grid made the opening laps extremely exciting as the likes of Fernando Alonso and Kimi Räikkönen lanced their way through the field. The race was packed with excitement, Alonso passed Michael Schumacher, lost the place again in the next round of pit-stops and took it back again a few laps later. But passing manoeuvre of the season has to go to Kimi Räikkönen who grunted his way past Giancarlo Fisichella on the final lap to steal victory. It’s interesting to note that Räikkönen has now won more Grand Prix than Alonso, as I said before this championship has rewarded the consisted driver. The Constructor’s Championship couldn’t be tighter going into the final round in China next weekend. Renault are now just two points ahead of McLaren, but McLaren continue to dominate the latter part of the season and still have to be favourites to take the title.

Also, the Bath Film Festival starts this week and I’ve resolved to make an effort to actually go to some of the movies this year. The whole festival completely passed me by last year and this year there’s quite a few films I would like to see. My girlfriend is going home for a few days this weekend so I guess I could amuse myself with a movie or two while she’s away.

Right better get on with some work then.