Welcome

Welcome to our family website, a look into the lives of the Walker-Smith family, well thats the idea

To find out more about us read the whoweare page, to find out more about this site have a look at the colophon... hmm which doesn't yet exist

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This is a work in progress, I hope to turn the whole site over to this look and feel over the next few days, so this site may not be working 100%, esp in those pesky window browsers.

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Reviewed

• book: James Bond in the Man with a Red Tattoo, Raymond Benson
• Hybrids, Robert J Sawyer
• Havana, Stephen Hunter
• The Fall of Hyperion, Dan Simmons
• Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind
• Hyperion, Dan Simmons
• Cloud of Sparrows, Takashi Matsuoka
• The Teeth of the Tiger, Tom Clancy
• The Last Samurai
• Time's Eye, Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter
• Ilium, Dan Simmons
• Closing Time: The Sequel to Catch-22, Joseph Heller
• Film: Just Married
• book: Darwinia, Robert Charles Wilson
• book: Bios, Robert Charles Wilson
• book: Imperial Earth, Arthur C. Clarke
• book: A Severed Head, Iris Murdoch
• book: James Bond in the Man with a Red Tattoo, Raymond Benson
• book: Red Thunder, by John Varley
• Film: Kill Bill
• book: Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson
• book: Colony, by Rob Grant
• book: Chronoliths, by Robert Charles Wilson
• Film: 28 days later
• Film: Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life
• book: Pale Horse Coming, Stephen Hunter
• Films: three good ones
• book: Catch-22, Joseph Heller
• book: Humans, Robert J Sawyer
• book: The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown
• Film: Terminator 3
• book: Blue Horizon, by Wilber Smith
• book: Evolution, by Stephen Baxter
• book: The Physics of Consciousness
• Matrix Reloaded: Theory

Words

• minutia
• Perfidy
• Necromancer
• ephemeral
• bete noire
• etymology
• heliopause
• agitprop
• entr'acte
• allegory
• ameliorate

Recent Entries

• We're Londoners
• book: James Bond in the Man with a Red Tattoo, Raymond Benson
• Indy at six… months
• Its a bit unnerving...
• Hybrids, Robert J Sawyer
• Havana, Stephen Hunter
• The Jimny, bought July 1999 – sold June 2004
• Hmm Apple Juice
• Options
• The Fall of Hyperion, Dan Simmons
• Uncle Toms Fotos
• My many faces
• Mass Destruction
• Being left by ...
• minutia
• Daddy, where have you been all this time?
• Eternal sunshine of a spotless mind
• Certified Geek
• Green Delight
• Perfidy

Archives

• August 2004 (1)
• July 2004 (2)
• June 2004 (7)
• May 2004 (7)
• April 2004 (5)
• March 2004 (9)
• February 2004 (17)
• January 2004 (24)
• December 2003 (21)
• November 2003 (15)
• October 2003 (20)
• September 2003 (25)
• August 2003 (15)
• July 2003 (32)
• June 2003 (51)
• May 2003 (12)

Santiago: Day two

Woke up this morning feeling guilty for being in bed and sleeping, it was only seven thirty. This guilty feeling also happens sometimes when I am on holiday; I think it's about being able to relax. I am off out now to hunt croissants for breakfast.

On BBC World News it's all Bush in Britain. I must say in passing that the BBC World channel is so much better than CNN. The reporting and substance is superior by far. Take Iraq coverage post war for instance; they are showing some hard truths of the war that aren't even getting an airing on CNN.
***
I find myself somewhat disappointingly sitting in a Dunkin Donuts for breakfast; I count myself lucky it's not a MacDonald’s. Last night I ate with Andrew at the Majestic; the only Indian restaurant in Santiago, and very nice it was too.

The remainder of the night was spent uselessly channel hopping. I am so glad nobody can count the hours we all spend on this useless pastime. Although sometimes surfing the Internet can be thought of as the same. I had my last hop and just managed to get the TV off before falling asleep.
***
I find myself sitting in a courtyard of the Chilean foreign office buildings leg weary and slightly bored. My plan this morning was to get into al Centro find a cinema and catch a movie. The taxi arrived around 1000h and with instructions to take me to a cinema closest to the Plaza de Armas. He did. The cinema turned out to be a porn one! If I still had the name and number of that taxi man I would love to know what made him think that was the type of movie I wished to see. Whatever, I now find myself waiting for the hours to pass before 1300h. If he had of taken me to real cinema I would have been comfortable and watching a movie, now I am walk weary and sweaty.

Santiago streets stemming from al Centro are nearly all the same. Global food joints, Mac'y D's, B King, you name it. Chemists; there are so many I must presume everyone is ill here. Then paper shops, they are everywhere; WHSmiths is not going to get a look in here. Then there are the Galleries. These exist at the ground level of the large buildings that make up al Centro. The only things in these (of any interest) are the coffee with legs joints. This is a phenomenon that I have never seen before: Coffee Shops with hyper scantily clad women. Main clientel of these shops are businessmen, and on the whole well dressed businessmen. Perhaps the only thing I could take back to England is this idea, if it does not exist already; I could become rich! Don't worry mum I did not go in.

Other things to be found in al Centro are English book stores, if anybody knows where they’re then please tell me, cause I still cannot find one.

There are of course your normal high street stores, clothes shop and just stuff that are plainly not interesting.
***
What do you think of underground restaurants? I myself don't really like them, there are some good ones though, esp in London, but the restaurant I am in right now is not one of them; plus I am the only person. It's only just 1300h. Lets live life on the wild side. Sushi arrived.
***
I am in the cinema, sushi was not really up to standard but cheap. The league of extraordinary gentlemen is the show. Will report all afterwards.

In the taxi ride over I had a half English-speaking driver, full of love for the UK, although he asked me from which country does Charles and Diana come. I have noticed in Chile that people get a little confused with the naming convention we have for our little country of ours (they also call it the rabbit, something to do with the shape). What is the UK? What is GB? Is Wales in England? These are the types of questions I commonly get.