I thought I would walk to the Collabora party from the conference. It was four miles, a pleasant walk. On the way I had to stop to write a sonnet.
If anything should happen to The Hague,
if someday they abandon Amsterdam,
philosophers will take these strange and vague
descriptions, and derive each tree and tram
by mathematical necessity:
should nations shake their fists across the seas
with words of war, it follows there must be
a middle ground, a people loving peace.
And is this scrap alone a netherland?
Not so: we spend our nights beneath the sky,
and every country’s low for us, who stand
a thousand miles below the lights on high;
if only I could learn to live as such,
and count myself as kindly as the Dutch.
I passed the Palace of Justice on the way, which is very beautiful. Collabora’s party was as impressive as always, with barbecues and beer. This morning I managed to pull myself out of the resulting hangover enough to give part of a talk on xzibit. (It was really Guillaume’s talk, but he was kind enough to give me a timeslice.) The talk went well except that the demo failed, due to my having tried to fix something and breaking it further. There will presumably be video of it all at some point.
Many thanks to Collabora for organising the party, but still more for sending me here (and to Cambridge).
I have written a nautilus plugin to post photos online. I might tidy it up a little and package it.
The MeeGo book is fast approaching publication. It feels like levelling up.