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

any grudge about sausages, is a grudge worth keeping your entire life mmmm.... not had sausages in ages.... about time I visited my butcher again If nothing else so I can have amusing tiwtter twitter convos with him, in the early hours of the morning

Well, I whizzed through security like a dream this time.

I knew I'd forget something, though. I left my Euros in the house!

strange... I didn't really find I needed any money last ... and only time (thus far) I was overseas <b

did you take ya knife? I'm thinking I oughta get me a new pocket knife... although, I'm guessing at the moment it'd just be another thing to add to teh currentlyl 5 Lb weight of my jacket and annoy the X-ray, or scanner operators at the hospital when they ask me if I've any 'metal' on me Hmmm.... maybe not such a good idea afteralll..... hope the trip goes well and s out the mind

King Bomba has landed. Crash-landed on my sofa, that is...

Have fun you guys!

I'm afraid to keep any knives in my pocket. The money seems to burn a hole in the bottom of my pocket without the help of a knife.

you'll wake him up.

I'm awake now!

Vienna is cool, at first inspection. I didn't do much today, just walked about, ate cake and drank coffee.

And Mal's landlord is a madman with a fetish about plastic sheets.

I've met people like that before! run whilst you can!

cakes!

I know.. I k now... we really shoudln't.... I've chemo in two days.... bad time with me neuts en all... but there was a cafe... and we walked past it; so we had coffee and cake too! mind... I'm betting you had cake in the plural

Actually, just cake in the singular. Well, maybe the plural, if you count the savoury one as cake, which was a Turkish cheese-filled pastry affair.

Tomorrow I'll have to try some other cakes. Cakes are going to be a feature of the coming week, I suspect . There are a couple of galleries I want to have a look at, so I might drift there tomorrow, too. Or maybe I won't. I'll see what I feel like.

a friend of mine was in Vienna at the weekend. She ended up in a cocktail type bar with a shoe shop attached, buying shoes and doing shots with the owner until the wee hours...

An astute businessman! Get people stocious and then sell them ankle-breakers when their wits have departed!

Vienna is chilly, but the sun is coming out. I'm having a breakfast beer, looking out the window at the river, and thinking about what I might do today. Holidays are wonderful things.

I've just discovered there is a museum of Schnaps!

But I don't know if Mal has a wheelbarrow to get me home from it...

The thing about museums, KB, is that you're not supposed to sample the exhibits Mind you, there's almost certainly a gift shop

Perhaps it's a good thing you forgot your Euros....

Tuesday night I saw a movie ["Woman in Gold"] about a woman who leaves California for Vienna to petition the Austrian government to return a painting stolen by the Nazis from her family's home during World War II.

I was in Vienna in 2004. It's an impressive place with its palaces and grand cathedrals and museums, but it's also a good place to find places to relax. I remember good times in the Central Café.

Today, apart from more coffee and more cake, I went to the Albertina (art museum). They had an excellent exhibition on called "Archive of Dreams", about how artists have dealt with dreams, the subconscious, and all the dark beasties that live in the depths of your mind. On top of that was their permant exhibition, "From Monet to Picasso".

If you're interested they also have the Habsburg stately rooms you can walk through, but to be honest I give that bit a fairly cursory walk-through. So much gold leaf and gilt, it gives you the same feeling as when you eat a whole box of chocolates at Christmas as a kid. Yuck.

There is also the private collection of Archduke Johann's landscape paintings - but again, I found those a bit same-y, chocolate box-y and dull.

Even though I skipped a lot of those bits, though, I still spent a good 5-6 hours there. Picasso, Degas, Kandinsky (they should sell a few Warhols and get more Kandinskys!), Monet...it's an amazing gallery.

I might actually go back and fork out the €20 they were asking for the exhibition catalogue, as it's a really nice art book in its own right.

"..how artists have dealt with dreams, the subconscious, and all the dark beasties that live in the depths of your mind" that sounds... cool

Oh, you'd love some of it, like Odilon Redon's creepy grinning spider with spindly legs...

That one actually made me laugh out loud because I turned round and it was unexpectedly leering at me.

that sounds fabulus! I want one in my house! hanging in the stairwell! I may turn my hand to art... when my hands are good enough again; kinda awarkward to work with sharp bits of pointy metal and bend wire whilst my fingers ain't feeling much - I've an idea involving shiney silver wires, single strand... like, and chains... err... no not that* sort of chains... thin, necklace like chains.... hmm. actually. thinking about it... some of the 'pics' in my head, are... actually... maybe a bit towards that* type of thing talk about a one track mind <laugh.

'art, to create a thing of beauty'.... nah... I need a broader definition.... perhaps to scare... to intregue, to cause question, or just cause downright fear, more like it - just to reveal a bit of the laberenthine depts of odd shapes, colours and conformations that encapsulates the inner workings of what passes for a subconsciouness round the general vacinity of my remaining neural synapses, centrally... fire and water should be involved somewhere.... oo... hang on... I've an idea... I think an artist should suffer pain for his art what could possibly go wrong...