01.07 POSER

Not sure what the heck Dion was doing in this picture - but I do remember asking him to pose for the camera.

If I recal this is how excited he will be when his sister, impregnated, makes him an uncle.

Or maybe he's just thrilled that I've let him borrow off my bookshelf Andrew Keen's latest, which I read over the summer.

He might also be describing the astonishing size of the mammoth pigeon in our backyard.

Or maybe, he, the self-titled "Living Legend" is professing his supremacy over all other photographers in our Eggdom.

I'm not sure. What do you think?

01.06 ONLINE

I show my age when I marvel at modern day technology.

(And I am but a spring chicken in comparison to the global mean age. )

Still I grew up in a world of Commodore 64s, played Super Mario Bros, and taped my favourite cartoons on VHS.

That's going back a few decades.

This afternoon, I signed onto Skype. It was marvellous. Despite the generation gap, my parents and I were made simultaneously giddy by the fact that we could chat live and audibly anytime, any day.

It was two years ago in my offline photo-journal that I have a similar snapshot when my mom first logged onto Messenger. That got old fast, though, and we reverted to telephone calls, generously and thriftily initiated from their line to my own.

By the look on my mother's face this time though, there's no going back.

01.05 WINDING UP

Back in the city.

I met up at Costa's (the British version of Timmy-ho's, though nothing even resebles the Timbit) with Salma and Juliette.

We got all caught up on our Christmas holidays and a little caught up in woes about the upcoming term - but stopped ourselves before we went too far and spent our entire coffee break (over which I did not have a coffee) stressing about school, deadlines - and searching for a lifeline in our mutual anxieties.

We've got a whole weekend before we pick up academically where we left off three weeks earlier. Hold the caffeine until then.

Right now its time to chill.
I sipped contently at my fruit smoothie.

01.04 HONEYBEE

Aside from real people, there is nothing better to come home to than a package in the mail.

This one was an unexpected gift from Noelle. The package contents, identified as push pins, had me guessing if that was some kind of cryptic clue for what was actually inside.

Indeed, the contents were push pins - a fancy kind with honeybee pegs.

Years ago, when I opened my first e-mail account I used the Greek translation of my name as a username. At the time, the honeybee became a collectors item for me, not so much because I wanted it to be, but because everybody assumed my online person was synonymous with my identity. The next thing I remember I was getting honeybee paraphernalia from tissue to tea mugs.

It got old, but this is a refresher. Its been ages since anybody bestowed a bumbling gift unto me. And it's just like Noelle to bring me back to 'the good old days' as we have a tendency to get caught up in reminiscing every time we hang out.

I pushed the pins here, there and anywhere I could find a spot in my hive.

01.03 ST GEORGE

The sun is setting on my holiday in Prague.

I travel today.

In the likes of St George, I might have charged valiantly homeward (home now being England!) on my noble steed.

But with all that luggage and all those lebchuken I ate, I wouldn't want to burden a horse.

Back to the real world. Daydream days are over.
I boarded a train, then a plane, then a train, then a tram back to Notts.

Ho!

01.02 KAFKA

The Jewish quarter of Prague was home to Franz Kafka, literary genious who put his psyche down on paper to become this nation's most revered writer.

I went to the Kafka Museum during my visit and learned about this author's sardonic existence. The "little ravachol" was led to school each morning by the family chef, he worked his way up in a public health and safety office and grew old, unmarried, but existed in the realm of four loves throughout his life.

The museum was dark, a reflection - or non-reflection - of the writer's style and character. The multi-media effects were dizzying, the author's biography depressing a shadowy mark on your soul.

I exited the museum, my vision strained by the daylight, emotionally exhausted - but enthralled at the same time. I would find this same effect in Kafka's writing once I finally got my hand on a copy of The Metamorphasis and dug my nose in deep.

One of his most intriguing pieces (in my opinion!) is A Hunger Artist - the story of a man allowed to die of starvation, in vain, amidst a bustling city centre. I'm pretty sure Kafka died of tuberculosis. In any event, he suffered a long, slow suffocation - and starvation - as his pipelines slowly collapsed.

The whole notion of the hunger strike, to me, is fascinating. It has been, historically a very powerful method of political movement and protest in a strangely ascetic way.

Dark, like the bottom of a barrel. Like the pit of an empty stomach. Like the hole where this sculpture's head should be.

I digress, but I will curtail this piece before I am overcome by the peculiar and suddenly onset sense that I need some comfort food:

This sculpture Jaroslav Rona is a memorial to FK. It is the artists interpretation of a figure in Kafka's story "Description of a Struggle."

A strange piece, yet it fits like the missing puzzle piece in this otherwise modest square.

01.01 ...MEANWHILE IN THE CITY

...later that night I got a dose of familiarity after all.

We made our way back toward Miss Sophie's, parking it at what has become somewhat of a home away from home for me: Banditos.

The way back was a remarkable journey, however. After departing the island, the now apparant refuge from the rest of the city, we meandered through the streetways nearby Wenceslas Square.

It was havoc.

Beleaguered drunks slept standing in shop doorways.
Bloodied bystanders were bandaged by medics.
A woman, passed out, was towed across my path on a cart, her arms dangling, lifeless at her side.

Have I got a resolultion for her.

The streets were invisible under layers of debris.
Shards of glass and remnants from firework crackers littered the streets.
Only the odd in-tact champagne bottle revealed this was a celebration and not a war-zone.

It was remarkable. What we had experienced by the waterfront was so far removed from the chaos and kurfuffle of the square centre. I suppose our experience was mild in comparison, but still truly authentic. The glimpse I got of the other Praguish new years had little appeal.

Must be getting old.

Anyhow, passed out bodies, beer bottles and trash were among the obstacles that made our trek back to Banditos epic. A few pit stops along the way to poke our heads into bars in the hopes we might find a table were in vain and eventually we beelined for what we already knew would be a good place to end the night and start a new year.