I also wrote some of it!

It’s a good book to have on the shelf to inspire long weekends. I’m already thinking of where I can go to take photos before the next edition comes out (Reykjavik, perhaps?)

Now available from all good bookshops…

We stayed in a great cottage overlooking the length of Ullswater and though the weather curtailed some plans, we still managed to find an excellent pub I hadn’t been to before (the Tower Bank Arms) and had good trips to Kendal and Cockermouth. And many spectacular drives through icy wastelands, punctuated with regular photo-stops.

The temperature went down to minus 17C and some of the Lakes (Bassenthwaite, Grasmere, Rydal) were frozen over. I stood on the edge of the ice on Grasmere so that I could say that I had, without actually venturing out too far.

The site was hand-coded in notepad2 before being turned into a WordPress template. It includes a blog and Twitter and Delicious integration.

“The h2 Solution offers independent professional expertise to optimise  performance and ensure your organisation is fit to meet the diversity challenges of the 21^st century.”

www.theh2solution.com

And I found some good new places, and some old ones I’d missed last time – an amazing organic gelateria on Piazza San Zeno, Enoteca Segreta, Osteria a la Carrega, Osteria ai Portegheti – and met friends I hadn’t seen in years.

The book is due out in the Autumn: “the definitive guide to the best tunes ever recorded”, according to the blurb.

A snippet to whet your appetites (and a cracking song to boot):

The Walkmen / ‘The Rat’

2004 / 4:28

Rocking and intense, Washington DC’s Walkmen released their debut album, the wonderfully titled ‘Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone’ in 2002. Inspired but occasionally rambling, comparisons were made with U2.

Noticeably tighter, 2004’s follow-up, ‘Bows + Arrows’, sounded like a band who’d found their feet. First single from the album, and standout track, ‘The Rat’ deals with an ex-friend or girlfriend: ‘You’ve got a nerve to be asking a favour, you’ve got a nerve to be calling my number’ growls Hamilton Leithauser. Behind him, the drumming and guitars are extraordinarily fast but also immaculately sharp. Leithauser has said that the song was written in less than an hour, after drummer Matt Barrick started messing around in a jamming session. An electric organ adds a background of menacing atmosphere to the memorable intensity.

The band formed from the remnants of two split groups in 1998, one of which was the much feted Jonathon Fire*Eater. They set up a recording studio in New York City and added tweaks such as antique piano into the garage rock mix. Inventive and evolving, the band have since done a track-by-track cover of Harry Nilsson and John Lennon’s 1974 album Pussy Cats; their acclaimed 2008 album ‘You & Me’ is softer, Dylan-tinged Americana.

Self-critical and refreshingly modest, The Walkmen have spoken proudly about how David Letterman asked to have ‘The Rat’ added to his morning jogging tape after they appeared on his show.

According to both Pitchfork and NME, ‘The Rat’ was one of the 20 best singles of the first decade of the 21^st century. A wound-up, bristling, knot of tight aggression, the song remains hard to follow. Anger seldom punched this hard or sounded this slick.

I’m currently working part-time as Online Content Editor for Bond, the UK membership body for non-governmental organisations working in international development.

Bond does some great work, and there is some interesting content to work with too, though the website isn’t achieving all it could be at the moment.

Expect to see some changes to www.bond.org.uk over the coming months.

The setting was stunning, the people beautiful and everyone made me feel completely welcome. I took my first photo at 08:30 in the morning, and my last at 03:15 the following morning, before guiding a guest, who’d lost his shoes, through the rain back to the gatehouse.

Below are some of my favourite photos of the day. There’s also a fuller web album.

We got trains and buses everywhere, which meant we were met with a mix of pity and bemusement, but it also slowed the pace and reduced the stress.

A few recommendations and highlights:

Galeria de Paris, Porto. A no-frills canteen restaurant full of locals with good food that you choose by pointing and wall cabinets from floor to high ceiling full of antique toys and radios.

Duas Nações, Porto. Friendly and cheap, on a gorgeous square with balconies and a good cafe and restaurant, up the hill in the old town.

Guimarães. A beautiful town with an amazing ruined Celtic settlement (Citania de Briteiros) on a nearby hilltop. We stayed in Residencial Mestre d’Aviz and had a fantastic room with two huge windows opening onto a balcony. Cheers, in the main square, has an awful name but serves great Portuguese food – try the selection of Portuguese tapas.

Lindoso. In the Parque Nacional da Peneda-Gerês, we had a beautiful little house (Casa do Moinho) with a restored waterwheel in this old, cobbled, red-roofed town. Great walks between little fields and vineyards, up onto the hills and down into valleys, where I swam in pools in the streams.

Viana do Castelo. A surprisingly hip little seaside town, with a beautiful old centre and a little putt-putt boat that takes passengers across the river to the huge Atlantic beach. We stayed at the excellent, stylish Albergaria Margarida da Praca, who, after losing our reservation, looked after us very well.

Highlights included a Moroccan tricolore salad (roasted tomatoes, fresh mint, goats curd cheese, roasted pine nuts), chocolate brownies with cardamom and crystallised rose petals, quails’ eggs dipped in spices, flavoured salts and mackerel baked with lime and preserved lemons.

Watch this space for news of the book, which will be out sometime soon.

Highlights included churros con chocolate at Sukuldari in the Boqueria, the understated elegance of the Pavilion Mies van de Rohe, Isabel Muñoz photos at the CaixaForum, wine and tapas at Andú and at Quimet & Quimet and a great lunch in Anima, just down the road from MACBA.

The sunshine and longer evenings and low light on Mediterranean walls helped too.