Matt and Kat Brown

As we turned inland from the French Riviera the landscape changed to old farm houses and fields of grapevines and olive trees – our first taste of Provence. We stopped briefly in Aix-en-Provence which I found very charming. The whole town seemed to be roofed with sycamore/plane trees – very pretty. Lynley and I enjoyed strolling through the market there and found some nice locally made soaps to buy. We had our first introduction here to the ‘Mistral’ which is a very strong dry wind that characterises winter and spring in Provence.

We reached Avignon in the evening and looped around the outside of the city before parking and walking in through the city gates. What makes Avignon unique is the solid castle-style walls which encircle the city – very cool. Lynley showed us the very sweet little building where she lives, complete with green wooden door and shutters and we then walked into the center for a quick dinner.

We spent the next day in Avignon. We saw the university where Lynley studies and assists and we also toured the school where she teaches English. We then browsed through a lovely indoor market and picked out bread, olives, cheese and strawberries for lunch. I would love to have so much variety of fresh, cheap, local food in Dublin! We took our purchases to the Popes Palace gardens and relaxed in the sun there with our picnic.

After lunch we went into the Palais des Papes. The Palace was the temporary residence of the Popes in the 1300’s and features many grand halls and rooms. The palace is mostly empty and unadorned these days but must have once been very ornate and overwhelming. After leaving the Palace we took a free ferry across the river for a nice view back to the city walls, the Palace and the Pont d’Avignon. After visiting Avignon its easy for me to see why Lynley loves it there so much!

On Wednesday we drove out from Avignon to Arles and the Camargue. In Arles we saw Roman ruins including the remains of an amphitheatre and other buildings. From Arles we headed down to the Camargue which is a different landscape to the rest of Provence. The area is flat and marshy with flamingos and other birds as well as distinctive black bulls and white horses. At the bottom of the Camargue we stopped at Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer and spent the afternoon at the beach. We enjoyed the sandy beach, went swimming and tolerated the wind which quickly covered everything in copious amounts of sand. The afternoon was topped off with icecreams and a big punnet of strawberries by the beach. Yum!

On the drive back to Avignon we also stopped in at Les Baux which is a very small medieval village nestled high in the rocky hillside. It was very sweet and had gorgeous views out over the area. We ate dinner in St-Remy which is another charming small village in Provence. Back in Avignon we said goodbye to Lynley. It was fun to holiday with her and I’m looking forward to showing her around Dublin later in June when she comes to see us

The photos from this leg of the journey are available under the Provence tag in our gallery.

Thursday we left Avignon early and drove south west to visit Carcassonne before catching our train to Barcelona…

We came home with over 600 photos between our two cameras and spent a good few hours today sifting through them and writing some captions.

The first installment can be found via the link below:

• Photos from Nice, Monaco and the Cote d’Azur

More to come in the following days as we find some more time to edit and caption the rest.

We got back last night from a fabulous week away in France and Spain. We visited some gorgeous places, oohing at the stunning vistas and ahhing over the charming buildings and places. I’m feeling very relaxed and content after a week of good food and wine, warm sun and no work!

Part One – Côte d’Azur

Our holiday started on Saturday with a 6am flight to Nice (thanks to Kieron for the ridiculously early airport drop!) which placed us on the Côte d’Azur by lunchtime. We met up with Lynley who arrived by train from Avignon and together we spent the afternoon exploring. The center of Nice is impressive to walk around with cool fountains, big open spaces and the palm tree-lined Promenade des Anglais. We spent the late afternoon basking in the sun on the beach. The beaches in Nice are all rocks rather than sand and the water in early summer is still very cold for swimming. Despite that it was still great to relax on the beach for a while. We ate dinner in a restaurant called ‘Le Maori’ which featured a ‘Maori burger’ with egg in it and also an ‘All Black’ dessert. Hilarious.

On our second day of holidays we decided to take a day trip along the coast to Monaco. After a false start taking the train (unexplained problems with the rail lines) we managed to catch a bus to Monaco in time for lunch. We stopped in at Monte Carlo, saw the casino and the beautiful views out over the sea. Monaco seemed to be a country of expensive cars, designer stores and luxury yachts. Well out of our league but still cool to visit. From the casino we walked down to Monte Carlo beach which was packed with vacationers. We ate gelato and people-watched for a while before taking the bus back to Nice. Tired feet and red shoulders and faces after our second day of sunny sight-seeing.

Our third day we checked out of Nice and took a hire car along the coast. Matt had the task of driving and did a pretty good job of adjusting to driving on the right (wrong) side of the road.  Our first stop of the day was in Cannes. We were there a week too early for the famous film festival but we did get to see all the tents and pavilions being set up in preparation and we walked on the red carpet hehe. Cannes was not a glam as I’d expected with much of the town feeling a bit ‘past its prime’. Like most of the Côte d’Azur the beach here was lined with deck chairs and divided up into sections by all of the restaurants and hotels planted right on the beach-front. So different from being at the beach in NZ, I would take a nice unspoilt stretch of the Coromandel over the French Riviera any day!

From Cannes we drove the winding coastal road along to St Raphael. Some stunning views along this drive – charming houses dotted along the cliffs and gorgeous blue sea stretching out to the horizon. Unfortunately by the time we reached St Raphael the sky had turned grey so we turned inland and plotted our course to Avignon via Aix-en-Provence…

Happy Easter everyone! We had a fabulous easter weekend, enjoying the company of Susanna and Daniel and showing them around some of Irelands sights. It was great to see old friends again and fun to get out of Dublin and enjoy the sunny weather.

Susanna and Daniel arrived early on Good Friday after a long train + ferry trip from London. Matt whipped up another batch of hot cross buns for breakfast (very impressive) and then mid morning we went out to walk around the city center stopping at all the main sights around the place. I was very grateful for the sunny afternoon, Dublin is always more charming on a sunny day!

On Saturday we hired a car and drove west through Limerick and on further to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher (otherwise known as the ‘Cliffs of Insanity’ to Princess Bride fans). Views from the cliffs were great and we enjoyed chilling out on the grass, eating icecreams and taking some fun photos. We also visited the Burren, stopping to look at an ancient dolmen tomb and to take in the great grey expanses of rock.  A second sunny day which was fantastic!!!

We spent Saturday night in Lisdoonvarna which is the self proclaimed home to Europe’s Largest Matchmaking festival every September. In April it was eerily quiet but we did find a little pub to sit in after dinner for a pint or two and some traditional Irish music. Charming apart from the rowdy group of lads in the back who decided to start a singing competition – I don’t think anyone won

On Sunday I was delighted to wake up to yet another sunny day. We took a ferry out to Inis Oirr, the smallest of the Aran Islands. The island is crisscrossed with a maze of dry stone fences that divide up every area into small green plots. We followed a path across the island and took a turn that eventually tapered out and led us into a little off road excursion through fields and over fences. It was perfect sunny weather for exploring the island and by the end of the day we were all a little surnburnt. That’s a first for us in Ireland! When we left Inis Oirr the boat took us on a short cruise past the Cliffs of Moher before returning to port at Doolin. From there we drove back to Dublin, arriving just in time for dinner and a good nights sleep.

A fun weekend and possibly the best run of weather we’ve had for a weekend in Ireland so far. Thanks to Susanna and Daniel for the good company, the opportunity for a road trip, and the whitlocks and squiggle tops

4 short days until Easter starts. We’re staying in Ireland with Daniel and Susanna coming over from London for the weekend. We’re looking forward to catching up and spending some time showing them around our adopted home city.

To get into the spirit of things I whipped up a batch of hot cross buns this afternoon.

They looked pretty good and tasted nice too.

It’s been a tough Monday getting back into the swing of things after our weekend away. Truthfully I’d much prefer to have spent my Monday relaxing in a piazza in Florence, sipping wine and eating antipasto.

We flew into Pisa airport late on Friday and on Saturday we spent the day in Pisa. In the morning we went looking for some geo-caches, before most of the town had woken up. We wandered through the old town and eventually ended up where all tourists in Pisa end up – at the Leaning Tower. Yes it does lean, quite a lot actually. We laughed at all the funny contortions of tourists as they took cheesy photos pretending to hold up / kick down the tower, and then we took some cheesy pics of our own

We spent the remainder of the day exploring the main street, doing a spot of shopping and eating some gelato – yum! Meals were an adventure as neither of us know any Italian.  It was worth the effort to venture out of the tourist area to eat, we made a point of going to a place without an ‘English’ menu for dinner. Ordering was hit and miss but overall led to some good food.

Feeling that we’d exhausted all Pisa could offer us on Saturday we decided to take the train to Firenze (Florence) on Sunday. It was a good day to be on the train as it rained heavily for a lot of the day. From what we saw of Florence in between downpours it seemed like a beautiful city. Looking out over the river Arno and walking over the Ponte Vecchio was a highlight for me.

We took the train back to Pisa in the afternoon ready to catch our flight home. Photos from the weekend are in our gallery.

Over the weekend I found the slow, relaxed pace of life a little… frustrating.  Shops not open when I wanted them to be and restaurants still empty at 8pm when we wanted to eat.   A two day visit isn’t really enough time to settle into the ‘go slow’ that would make Tuscany so appealing on a longer more relaxing vacation.  I’m happy with the small taste we had but can definitely see potential for a long lazy holiday there in the future – sipping wine and reading a good book, soaking in the ambiance… bellissimo!

This post originally appeared on Matt’s Musings (Matt’s computer focussed blog).

I was very pleased to wake up this morning to the news that National has delayed the introduction of S92A via an order-in-council. It’s a nice short-term victory, but I’ll save the champagne until the law is fundamentally rewritten.

The most pleasing aspect of the decision is simply that it was made at all. Within two weeks, a small band of protesters were able to harness the power of the Internet to direct international attention and place enough pressure on a Government, whose Prime Minister admitted to not having read the bill prior, that he then took the time to understand the issues and personally announce the delay in implementation of the law. We owe much thanks to the Creative Freedom Foundation for all the effort they put into co-ordinating the protest and ensuring that a single coherent message was presented. Just a little bit of my cynicism and belief that politicians never listen to public opinion outside of election campaigns was chipped away today.

The reason I’m not breaking out the champagne yet is that we’ve only achieved a temporary reprieve in the commencement of the law. While those present at the press conference seem somewhat confident that John Key didn’t like what he found in the law and would have repealed it if given the chance, all that has actually been done is delay it in the hopes of an agreement between the TCF and the “rights holders” (aka big media companies) on how to implement the still fundamentally broken law. The Government has given until late March for that to occur.

To put this into a more global context. My happiness as I took the bus to work after reading about the decision to delay the law was short lived as the front page of the local paper declared that Eircom (Ireland’s equivalent of Telecom) has “voluntarily” agreed to block sites such as The Pirate Bay upon request by the media companies (this comes a week after they also announced an agreement to, again “voluntarily”, implement a 3-strikes S92A style policy). Now, with the biggest ISP in their pocket (so to speak), the media companies have sent threatening letters to the remaining ISPs in the country demanding they implement the same procedure.

To me, this illustrates one of the fundamental problems with S92. The concept that an ISP is liable for the conduct of its users, or for policing where on the Internet users should and shouldn’t be able to connect to does not belong in our laws. Most ISPs already have provision to disconnect customers for illegal activity in their terms and conditions. If an end-user is doing something illegal, that is an issue between the rights holder and the end-user to take up in the courts just like every other sector of society must do when wronged, at which point the existing ISP terms and conditions can be invoked and access terminated.

The big media companies, having decided that it is too expensive/hard/inconvenient to follow standard legal procedures to resolve their grievances are launching multi-pronged attacks to shift the playing field in their favour. In countries like New Zealand, where our politicians yearn for a Free Trade Agreement with America, they use their lobbyists to ensure that S92 style laws are part of the conditions. In other jurisdictions, like Ireland, they use strong-arm, divide and conquer style bully tactics outside of the political and legal process.

I don’t support copyright infringement. I rely on copyright to protect much of the work I place on the Internet, I want strong laws that protect me when my rights have been infringed. I don’t believe that such laws should come at the expense of due process, our legal tradition and the basic principle of fairness! I don’t believe that copyright infringement is such a heinous crime that it demands punishments stronger than those we deliver to paedophiles, stalkers or any other class of criminal who uses the Internet to enable their crimes.

To me, today’s (yesterday’s – depending on your timezone) decision is only the first step in clawing New Zealand back from the dangerous path that the big media companies have been leading our law makers down. From here we need to press on and demonstrate to the Government over the next month that even if the TCF and rights holders are able to come up with some sort of workable code of practice, the law is still fundamentally flawed. It is based on premise that we are guilty by accusation.

Even if guilt were to be proved by a competent legal body (eg. court or copyright tribunal) we don’t need laws placing further liabilites onto ISPs (and remember the definition of ISP under this amendment act includes businesses who provide Internet access to staff, libraries, schools and hospitals) when their existing terms and conditions already prohibit illegal activity.

Finally, and most importantly of all, we need to remember that laws exist to serve all sectors of society. Yes, copyright infringement is against the law and rights holders are reasonable in expecting the law to protect their content and allow them to make a fair profit. On the other side of the fence, average New Zealanders are not being unreasonable in their desire to have media available electronically, on demand and non-inhibited by DRM following a legal purchase. The failure of the media businesses to adequately cater to this change in market demand and usage of technology is obviously a contributing factor to the widespread copyright problems that they are facing today.

Obviously, I’m not condoning copyright infringement simply because the media companies are failing to address demand. Even stupid laws must be obeyed (and the concept of copyright is far from stupid). What I want to see is the Government acknowledging that the problem is not solely with consumers infringing copyright for malicious purposes, and therefore that the solutions do not lie solely in increasing the enforcement and punishments available.

Copyright has always been a balancing act between the rights of content producers and consumers. S92 and the act it is contained within are taking us far too far down the road of catering to big business and their outdated business models with far too little concern for the rights of the individual consumer.

Despite the many submissions made on this act last year when it was first passing through parliament, there was no comprehensive debate on what copyright means and how it should balance the rights of content producers and consumers in our digital century where copying is a zero-cost, zero-thought activity. Without such a debate we’re doomed to continue wasting time arguing over the symptoms of the problem, like S92.

So, I’m saving my champagne for the day when we as a country address these issues and come up with a fair and workable interpretation of what copyright means today.

If you feel the need to comment, head over to the original post on Matt’s Musings.

This post originally appeared on Matt’s Musings (Matt’s computer focussed blog).

If you’re reading this post via the website rather than a feed/planet then you will notice that the site has gone completely black in support of the Creative Freedom Foundation’s campaign against S92A of the NZ Copyright Amendment Act which is due to come into effect on 28th February 2009. I’ve also joined the wave of people blacking out their “avatar” on Facebook/Jabber/MSN, etc.

S92A introduces “Guilt Upon Accusation” whereby if you are accused of copyright infringement (downloading music and movies, etc) “repeatedly” (likely 3 or more times) you are at risk of being disconnected from the Internet by your ISP. The law does not require any proof or substantiation of the accusations and the entire process would occur outside of the courts and the established legal system. Not only does it place every user at risk, the wording is very unclear on exactly what type of organisation is considered an ISP and there is significant concern that schools, businesses, libraries and hospitals will be placed in the difficult position of determining whether their users have broken the law and require disconnection.

Opposition to the law is not an attack on copyright, or a statement that we should be free to download all the movies and music that we desire. Those sorts of activities are clearly wrong, and I don’t have any issue with copyright holders wanting to enforce their rights when their content is illegally copied. However, disconnecting people upon accusation, with no proof or formal legal process to prove guilt is not the right way to go about it.

The fact that the law does not require proof of guilt is only the tip of the iceberg in terms of problems with it. For further background on the problems it causes for ISPs by placing them as the middle-man in copyright disputes you should refer to the following posts:

• Russel Brown of Public Address, points out that among other faults the law “stipulates a penalty that no court would impose in adjudicating a copyright complaint“
• David Farrar of Kiwiblog, has a guest post at the NZ Center for Political Research explaining how the law affects businesses
• Creative Freedom Foundation Background on S92

Finally, I think it is worth pointing out that S92A was removed from the proposed Amendment at the select committee stage, but was later reintroduced by Judith Tizard during the final reading of the bill. Mark Harris has an excellent post on the history of the amendment which includes facts such as the official report on the amendment also recommended removing S92A as it was unecessary given existing ISP terms and conditions which forbid illegal activity. The fact that the select committee (based on public submissions) recognised the problems with S92A and removed it, only to have it added back in again at the last stage when we no longer had any say on it really hacks me off and I cant’ help but feel the influence of the “big money” American media companies pressuring our politicians to pass a law that they don’t really understand the full consequences of.

So what is to be done? The Blacked Out campaign, being run by the Creative Freedom Foundation is gathering steam and international attention. Peter Dunne of United Future (who originally voted for the amendment) has declared that the amendment is wrong, and doesn’t do what they thought they were voting to do, we need to convince National and the rest of the house of the same. Time is running out for this to happen before the amendment comes into effect on Feb 28th, but there is still time to write to your local MP and sign the petition against S92A “Guilt Upon Accusation”. The Creative Freedom Foundation site has a nice easy list of what you can do to register your protest.

If you feel the need to comment, head over to the original post on Matt’s Musings.

Already over a week since we were Scotland and I’m only just getting around to writing about our second day there! The new year is certainly off to a roaring start.

On Day 2 (Dec 28) we started out from Inverness on a very cold, frosty and foggy morning and attempted to see some more of Loch Ness, given that it was pitch dark and foggy by the time we arrived in the area the day before. We did manage to get a glimpse of the northern tip, but the fog didn’t really seem to be in a hurry to move and show us much more than that so we pressed onwards towards Aberdeen in search of some castles for Kat. Unfortunately when we arrived at the main castle on our list we found it completely covered in scaffolding and looking like a plain white box. Not to be deterred we pressed on and found a few other castles to look at and then stayed for the night in a converted castle just outside of Aberdeen.

We’ve been doing some Geocaching on our travels as an interesting way to see some sights off the beaten track. Our success rate was 6 out of 8 and declined seriously as the trip progressed. We found 2 on the first day, four on the second and then none for the rest of the trip!

Day 3 was a bit of a rush as we hurried down from Aberdeen to get to Falkirk (following a circuitous route through a golf course and some random back roads thanks to some dodgy Google Maps directions) in time to see the Falkirk Wheel in action. Outside of the Hogmanay activities, the Falkirk Wheel was probably the highlight of the trip for me. The wheel is basically a large canal lock which very efficiently transfers boats between two canals just outside of Edinburgh. A magnificent and beautiful piece of engineering.

The reason for our haste this day was that we needed to get into Edinburgh, drop off the car and get to our accomodation in time to be in the central city by 6pm for the Hogmanay Torch Procession. 20,000 people carrying flaming torches through the center of Edinburgh up onto the top of a hill where they let of lots of fireworks and light a huge Lion shaped bonfire. An excellent way to kick of the Hogmanay celebrations.

The rest of Hogmanay was just as good, including the New Years Eve street party in the middle of the city. They reckoned there were 100,000 people there, all remarkable well behaved despite the free flowing beer and wine. No drunkenness or stupidity like you’d expect at a similar event in New Zealand or Ireland! We had a great time. The fireworks were again spectacular with short bursts every hour from 9pm until midnight and then a long display to see in the new year.

So, all in all, Scotland rates highly in our book. Our biggest mistake was trying to see too much of the countryside in the first few days. We didn’t really factor in the fog and early sunset at that time of year (around 3:30pm) which means that we will definitely need to return at some point to do justice to the beautiful scenery that we glimpsed as we rushed through.

Photos from the trip are up:

• As one big gallery
• or individually
• Day 1 – Glasgow to Inverness
• Day 2 – Inverness to Aberdeen
• Day 3 – Aberdeen to Falkirk
• Hogmanay Torch Parade
• Hogmanay 2008

Our Scotland jaunt started last night when arrived at Prestwick Airport after only a short delay from our Ryan Air flight. We picked up our hire car and made it into Glasgow for the night without incident. Our hotel room for the night  (Ibis) was serviceable (and a carbon-copy of the room layout of the Ibis hotel in Bratislava!) if not particularly cozy and we were glad to get on the road in the morning.

We picked up a pay-as-you-go 3G internet pack in Glasgow so that we could use Google Maps and some navigation applications in conjunction with the GPS on the new Android phone that Matt got for Christmas from Google. While Kat battled with the 3G modem Matt took a wrong turn and ended up driving for 30 minutes in completely the wrong direction! Eventually we managed to get both the 3G and our bearings sorted out and got out of the Glasgow area (in the right direction this time) just before lunch. Having the GPS and Google Maps as we drove along was very interesting and useful, although the Internet eventually cut out as we got into the really nice scenery leaving us with just the GPS.

The landscape was beautiful, lots of lochs, grand mountain scenes and plenty of frost on the ground. We were glad for our hats and gloves! We had come prepared and managed to find and log 2 out of the 2 geocaches that we attempted along the way. By 3:30 it was starting to get dark and we were only just half way to Inverness. We captured some beautiful sunset photos looking west across Loch Linnhe around 4pm and then drove the rest of the way to Inverness (alongside Loch Ness) in the dark and gloomy fog. No sign of Nessie!

Stay tuned for more news tommorrow (maybe, depending on time and internet access :p)!