Snow in Leeds

The snowfall started on last Friday. I had just arrived from my trip to St.Poelten in Austria, it was shortly after midnight, temperature was just below 0 Celcius. My car on the airport long term parking had been frozen over, so I had to scratch the windows free. Shortly after I had started driving, it began to snow. I came home safely, and in the morning there was a snow cover of maybe 1-2 inches in and around Leeds.

This is very unusual here in UK, to have snowfall that early in winter. In the astronomical calendar it is officially not yet winter ...! Only the Eastern part of the UK seemed to be hit by that snowfall, when looking towards the Yorkshire Dales, the mountains there appeared to be bare without any snow.

The following days and nights there was some further light snow, and since the temperature remained below freezing, the snow kept accumulating. And then today after 10:00 am there came a big snowfall, as I was at work: there were thick snow flakes, and they began to accumulate quickly. When I checked my car, there was a cover of about 4-5 inches on it!

When I returned from lunch, my colleague from the neighboring office asked me if I could give him a lift home. He only lives a 15 min driving distance from our campus, but in the morning it had taken him almost 4 hours to come to work, using buses. A main meeting that had been scheduled for the afternoon was cancelled - many people could not make it because of the snow. And Leeds Met closed down at 3pm. So I drove my colleague to his home; took about 30 minutes. The road was quite full, traffic was moving slowly. Cars started to skid as soon as there was a slight incline.

The Smart car is not really ideal for these snowy conditions: it has rear wheel drive, and its automatic clutch does not give me any control over a soft starting. But I managed anyway, just had to be very careful when accelerating - and avoid using the brake, just rolling out a slow speed instead. The northern Ring Road in Leeds was full of cars in both directions: this road has quite a few hills, and any incline, either downhill or uphill, present a major problem for driving, as cars easily start to skid. I avoided Ring Road by driving through local roads in Adel and Alwoodley.

I had promised another colleague at Leeds Met to give him a ride home too, so I drove back to Leeds Met. Since the Ring Road was full, I had to drive a longer way than I had anticipated, going all the way East to the A61, then driving south to the city centre. This direction was quite empty, but long lines of standing or slowly driving cars were heading out of the town, inching along through the slippery roads. At one point I missed a right turn and had to drive quite a detour because I did not want to drive back into that long line of waiting cars, and in one location I also started to skid and almost hit a fence at the side of the road. But I managed to avoid the collision and slowly moved further on. 35 Minutes later I was back at Leeds Met, picked up my colleague, and drove him too to his home.

In the news today on TV the main topic was the weather and the traffic chaos. Not sure if LeedsMet is open tomorrow. I have teaching of a class scheduled for 9am - and I will try to be there. As a reward for students who will show up to this lecture I will bring some German Lebkuchen and Pfeffernuesse - if I manage to keep away from eating them myself tonight.

40 Part Chorus Work - on 40 Loudspeakers

Yesterday at the Open Coffee event in Leeds a colleague informed me about this very nice sound installation which had been run at the Grand Theatre in Leeds from 4. February. So I went yesterday evening after work. 40 speakers are placed in the Howard Assembly Room in the Grand Theatre, and each of those speakers plays the recording of one solo singer. The work is the 40 part "Spem in Alium" by Thomas Tallis, the installation is by Janet Cardiff. A wonderful experience - 11 minutes long, played the whole afternoon from 2pm to 8pm. Today, 3.March, is the last day that this is being performed there - I can recommend to anyone to go there and have a listen. Btw, the admission for this is free.

Opening of the Leeds Christmas Market

On Friday evening the Leeds Christmas Market (German style Christkindel Market) opened on Millenium Square. I just had finished a meeting in the Rose Bowl, so I walked down to the market as it got dark around 16:30. The arrangement of the booths is slighty different than last year, but I found what I wanted: got a Brezel with ham and cheese, then a Bratwurst, and finally some fried potatoes. There was some live music at the steps of the Civic Hall, but unfortunately it began to rain. A queue formed, when a chap gave out free beer - I joined the queue and got my pint.
Then met with Monika and Julius who were here from Austria regarding their PhD. Had a glas of Gluehwein, then we wanted to go into one of the tents. But the line was long now - and we did not want to stand in the rain. So we went on to the Victoria Pub where a few more people from Leeds Met joined us. I had to leave around 20:30, as a pile of reviews was waiting on my computer to be done.

Weather

The weather is a favorite topic here in the UK. It changes often very quickly, and the western location of the British Isles means that they get all the rainy stuff from the Atlantic first, before it hits the rest of Europe.

When I arrived here 3 years ago in September, it had been quite warm and sunny, very little rain indeed. Also the following summer was quite pleasant. But the following two summers did not really deserve that name: in 2007 the summer was the wettest in history (based on weather records dating back more than 300 years). Widespread flooding has caused a lot of damage to many houses. And this year, there had not been a single really hot day (at least I cannot remember any). Frequent rain, sometimes for several days. Also quite cold, at least relative cold compared to the usual moderate temperatures. In the past few weeks there had been night temperatures down to 3C, which is very unusual. This had also the effect that this year the autumn leaves of the trees are more colorful, as the cold temperature caused the production of more sugar in the leaves, and that creates more colorful foliage (at least that is how I think it works). The effects can already be seen, as some trees show nice yellow and red leaves, instead of the usual simple browning-and-fading-away coloring.

There have been periods of nice weather too, bright sky, with its northerly light-blue shine. Not too bad afterall.

Opera in the Park

In Temple Newsam, in the south-east corner of Leeds, an open air event took place: "Opera in the Park", with the Opera North. Several ten-thousands of spectators grace the large lawn, throughout sunset from 20:00 - 22:30, and listen to excerpts from operas. The event ends with Borodin's orchestral piece "Polovtsian Dances". Gives me inspiration to re-work my own rendition of this music, which I had done back in 1994 (actually, I only had worked on the very first part of this wonderful piece).

Difficult to print an A0 poster in Leeds...

On Sunday night I finally found the time to design my poster, representing the Centre for Creative Technology. I thought it would be easy to find a shop which could print it in A0 size. But when I looked at the Fedex/Kinko site, where I had printed that nice poster for the 2005 AXMEDIS conference, I noticed that they are no longer in Leeds, only in London. I had asked the day before at Staples, but they only print A1, and laminate only A2. I could split the poster, but this would be only an emergency option. A friend had told me about a copy shop near Leeds Uni. As I pass it, it appears to be closed for holiday. In many of the online directories, one company was mentioned: Baskind Imaging. I had tried their website, but I only had gotten their reply "website cannot be found". I had called their phone number, but nobody had picked up. When I finally went to their address, 54 Otley Road, there was a sign that parking is only for Baskind Imaging customers. But the actual store was not there. I ask the clerk of a printer cartridge shop which now seemed in its place, and he told me that they have moved two blocks futher. Ok, I walk there. No sight. I go back to the car and drive along where the clerk had told me the shop would be. No avail. Only private residences. some churches. Am I stupid or what? This search for a simple print job becomes quite frustrating.

I have to go back to my office and search the web again... There I find something promising: Printer In Leeds. They have a nice online chat. I sign on to ask if they can do the job. Alice answers, yes they can, but it would take a while to ship it to me. Can I not pick it up? No, because they are - in London. So what about their name "Printer in Leeds"? Yes, they are currently looking to hire a representative in Leeds.

I feel like I am in a parallel universe, where everything that business do is aimed at getting no business. What kind of attitude is this? Who came up with that business name? Why not call it PrinterInLondon? I am getting desperate. Find another company, get a quote, is over 100 pound. Ok, I am willing to pay this, would be reimbursed from my EU grant.

But then I finally hit the jackpot: Deepblue Digital. Here is a company who is willing to do business. Of course, they could make the music on their web page an optional item, instead of forcing the viewer to listen to it, but they respond quickly to my inquiry. I had called them, get a call back that they can do it. I send them the PDF and the Powerpoint File around 12:00 noon, and at 16:45 I get a call back that the poster is ready. Printed and laminated, and trimmed to my specifications. Great! I drive there to Roundhay Park to pick it up. Price: 19.90 £ for the A0 print (which is extrodinarily affordable) plus another 19.90 £ for the lamination. Plus VAT. In any case, they have the lowest price I had found, and they were actually able to do it. I can recommend them highly! And the poster looks great. Aside from my own mediocre design for it ...

On travel

The weather this morning was grey. A slight drizzle started. I could not find my camera, must have forgotten it in my office. So first a drive to Headingley. Since it is Saturday, the Caedmon building is closed. I go to the guards in the James Graham building, 10 min later someone opens for me the entrance to Caedmon. First I cannot find the camera in my office, then I see it on the floor, almost hidden uderneath the table pillars. Glad to take it with me on the travel. I had taken quite a few nice pics with it in the past 3 1/2 years since I had it.

Quickly operating my GPS software on the phone, to upload location, then the taxi arrives. Ride to the train station. Get a sandwich for the trip, then waiting for the train at the platform. The train is quite full, a few people even have to stand. I only get an isle seat, GPS has no reception, so no tracking. Will try again at Manchester Airport.



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At Rugby Game

On Friday evening, Leeds Met Pro-Vice-Chancellor Sally Brown had invited me to attend a Rugby game with the Leeds Rhinos. She had reserved a table at the Headingley Stadium for a nice dinner, for a few of Leeds Met staff and invited guests. This evening the guests were from Leeds Met cultural partnerships.

A very nice dinner, interesting conversations. And then the first ever rugby game that I attended: the unbeatable Leeds Rhinos against the Harlequins. Naturally, Leeds Rhinos won 48:0. Is an interesting game. Appears to be quite complex, with some degree of violence. But the audience is very family-oriented: there are parents with their kids, and the fans behave very orderly - no beating.

Earthquake!

This night, at 0:56, an earthquake could be felt in England. Turns out this was a 5.2 earthquake with some damage, and it could be very well felt here in Leeds. First there was a little shaking, then it became stronger, lasting for about 10 seconds, then again fading away into just slight vibration.

Interesting - this is now the strongest earthquake I ever felt. While living in California, I only once felt a comparatively strong quake: in 1997 there was a 5.0 quake - it felt stronger, but I was also closer to the epicentre (10 miles). The epicentre of the quake now in the UK was approx. 50 miles away from Leeds, in Market Rasen.

Winter in Leeds

These past 2 weeks we did not have any rain here in Leeds - instead it got colder and colder, due to an Polar air stream. Freezing temperatures at night, below 0 C, then some fog in the morning. This created very nice picturesque conditions, with trees covered in frost. Later in the day the sky became blue - a very nice sight!
Unfortunately I did not have much time for taking pictures, just a few while being on the way between meetings...

OpenCoffee in Leeds

Following an invitation by Imran Ali, I attended the 3rd OpenCoffee meeting in Leeds. I did not know anyone other than Ben Dalton who also attended, but I had interesting conversations with several people about technology, web, geo-tagging, mobile phones, augmented reality etc. A very interesting group of engineers and technologists!

Big News: A new car!

It was about time. The Ford Granada was no longer attainable: as a consequence of the burnt relais in the fuse box, the front lights stopped working. No low beam, no high beam, not even the stand / parking light, nothing. The rear lights were ok, also the interior illumination. But somehow the electric wiring to the front lights must have gotten damaged. Maybe the whole fuse box would have to be changed...

And another problem popped up briefly: when putting the gear into "Drive", usually the engine gets a slight boost, to idle smoothly. A few days ago, this boost was gone - the engine just idled at low RPM while in D, but not high enough, so that on a hill the car started rolling backward. This would not be good... the MOT is due soon, and I would have to pay a lot to get everything fixed and make the car safe again.

So I decided that it might be better to get another car, and probably sell this one. Autotrader was again the web site of choice for searching. I wanted again an estate (station wagon, "Kombi"), and this time I wanted a Diesel, to get a better economy. Automatic transmission would be nice to have, but not mandatory. I am now more confident driving in the UK, and I think I can manage switching gears and driving "on the wrong side". I had my mind set on a Citroen - I wanted to try how this active hydro-pneumatic suspension. I would have liked to get one of the old DS from the 1960s/70s, maybe as a station wagon. But these cars are very rare. More realistic seemed the XM, or the Xantia. The C5 is too new, which means too expensive. I did again not want to spend much money, but I was willing to go up to 2500 Pounds.

It was hard to find the combination Estate/Diesel/Automatic... the closest one would be 150 miles away near London, and I would not drive so far just for a car. So I searched for a non-automatic, and yesterday there was one for sale, 17 miles from here, a 1997 Xantia, with 179k miles. So I called, then drove to Harrogate. A test ride, and then I had to make decision: buy the car, or wait for a better opportunity. I decided to go for it. The dealer offered me still something for the Granada, meaning he reduced the purchase price of the Citroen Xantia from 595 to 450 pound, and to me that sounded reasonable. The high mileage was a bit of a turn-off, but the car really drove well. No rust, no oil leaks, a quite good condition. A hadshake sealed the deal.

And so I drove today again to Harrogate, with 350 pound in cash in my pocket (to pay the rest after the 100 pound deposit). The last ride of the Ford Granada, at 144k miles. Then back with the "new" car. It drives nicely. Was a bit dusty, so the first thing I did was to clean it a bit inside and take it to a car wash. Now it looks ok, after I vacuumed the floor and brought the dashboard to a shine. Amazing how one can bring back that "new car look" so easily, with just a few wipes of some "shiny armor" liquid. If car dealers would do that, they immediately could charge more for their used vehicles, as the pure look would impress potential customers.

Now the car has to prove itself in the daily drive. The suspension is great: I put it on a high level when entering the steep driveway of the cottage. The lowering is nice too - allows better access to the motor. A few things do not work: the rear wiper does not move - might be a cable or the fuse. The left rear door lock does not operate with the remote, needs to be opened and closed manually. And at one point the warning light for the airbag began to blink - not sure what this means, it stopped now and seems fine.

Torrential Rain

The weather forecast looked bleak - more rain coming. And it came today. Lots of flooding in East Yorkshire. 900 people trapped at their work places in Sheffield.
A man dies due to the flood.

Here in Leeds, some parts of the areas near the docks in the vicinity of the city centre (south of the train station) are flooded. Fortunately, our cottage is at the side of a hill, where the water can flow down... but there is some water seeping through the old walls.

This June had the most rainfall since they kept metreorological records.

Concert in Leeds Town Hall

This Saturday, one of the last concerts of the Leeds International Concert Season took place. I really have enjoyed this season, attended many great concerts. This one today, the Budapest Symphony Orchestra under conductor Tamás Vásáry played four "war-horses" of concert pieces, that is very well known popular music which did not pose any risk of the audience not being receptive. The Leeds Town hall only had a few empty seats, it was almost fully booked.

The term "war" would apply to the first piece in a bit of a negative sense: Liszt's "Les Preludes" is a wonderful music as its own, but it has in my mind a negative connection: the joyous victorious fanfare theme that appears twice in it, was used from 1941-1945 in the German Wochenschau (weekly news reel) as the introductory "theme music" of the war against the Soviet Union. And since I have been very interested in history, this music theme creates in me an uneasiness, whenever I hear it. Poor Liszt - had he only known what his music had been abused for...

The 2nd piece in the concert program was the "Cello Concerto" by Antonin Dvorak, one of my all-time favorites. I never had heard it in a live concert before, I only knew quite well since the early 1990s the recording with Cellist Mischa Maisky and the Israel Philharmonic. When cellist Nina Kotova started to play her solo after the orchestral introduction, it seemed as if the acoustic properties of the Leeds Town Hall were not really supporting the sound of a cello - compared to the orchestra, her Stradivarius cello sounded a bit faint and had trouble to stand out on its own. However, the brilliant and emotional play by Nina was shining through anyway. Once I got used to the quieter than expected sound, it was a pleasure to listen to her phrasing, the vibrato, the wonderful singing music written by Dvorak for this instrument. At some times, the orchestra had a hard time to catch up to her interpretation.

During the break, a CD was sold with a recording of that Cello concerto (with the Philharmonic Orchestra under Andrew Litton), and Nina did sign the CD and concert programs. I briefly mentioned to her my interest in computer music and the integration of human artists with synthesizers - maybe there could be a joint work some time in the future...?

After the break another popular piece: Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1. I knew this piece quite well, during my days in high school I had played some of it on piano in a transcription. The part "In the Hall of the Mountain King" was one of my more successful computer-synthesizer-based MIDI renditions back in 1999.

Then the last piece was Stravinsky's "Firebird Suite". I never had heard this piece in a live performance, but I knew it very well since more than 25 years. A splendid work, colorful, dynamic, with quiet and melancholic parts, and then with outbursts of energy. The orchestra translated the score very well into sound, and the conductor did his part on energizing the orchestra with intense gestures.

After the performance, three encores were given, the last one from Dvorak's Slavic Dances. In 1981 I had played this piece with my music teacher, on 4-handed piano. And in the years after that, I had also played it with my grandmother on her piano, when her hands were still a bit more flexible than now.

A great concert evening, with many memories for me back in time!

Visit at Leeds University

On Friday afternoon I visited the group of Professor David Hogg from Leeds University. The Vision Group there holds every Friday a meeting called The Journal Club, and on 24.Feb. I was invited to give a presentation about my work on Augmented Reality and meet the researchers in this group.

Kirkstall Abbey, one of the many abbeys in ruins here in this area, as a consequence of Henry VIII's closure of the monestaries in the 16th century. 

There are many Victorian buildings in Leeds. 

Leeds Civic Center. The Leeds Metropolitan University campus is behind this building (not visible) 

Leeds Town Hall in the city center. 

The first day in the UK - at my new post

The day after my arrival, my first action is to go shopping at the Morrisons Supermarket which just a few minutes away to walk. They do have a nice selection on various food items, so I get the stuff that complements the items provided by Graham and Cath. Typical food seems to be: pies and pasties.

The weather is warm and mild. A few first initial meetings at the faculty.
A tour around a few campus facilities.
Then in the afternoon the start of the staff development festival.
A presentation by Eddie Onbang.


In the evening there is an event on the famous Headingley Cricket Field.
An important game was on - but I have no idea about this game or the rules. But I learn the most important rule: that it usually rains heavily when such a game is on. And it does indeed: it began to rain heavily, and a thunderstorm soaked the ground.
The game was postponed, and instead the dinner was served early.


Later on the BBC news, the reports come in about the horrible events in New Orleans.