As it was so cheap to cross the Bizkaia Bridge in Bilbao, around 85p, I thought that I’d try the experience. There’s an option to walk across the top for €10, but I was content with my choice. It only takes a minute or so and it all feels smooth. It can also carry a surprising amount of weight including relatively large numbers of pedestrians and also cars.
And here’s the riveting video of the crossing. I appreciate that a short film of a bridge moving sideways across water may not trouble the awards season, but it does at least document the event for my two loyal blog readers, who I am sure have been waiting patiently for more suspended transporter bridge content.
There’s an interesting article in the Guardian today about whether AI could write the next great novel, and I’m beginning to suspect that it actually could. Whether it should is another matter, and whether it would insist on calling the novel something like The Whispering Algorithm is probably a separate ethical concern.
The article refers to a service called Pangram, which claims to be able to detect with near certainty whether text has been written by AI or by a human. This sounded interesting, so I thought I’d try it out with the full scientific rigour of someone sitting at a computer trying to prove a minor point. I used one paragraph that had been written by AI, and one paragraph from my blog written three years ago.
Pangram managed to get them both wrong. Not only that, it got them wrong while expressing high confidence, which is always the most enjoyable kind of wrong. There is a certain charm in uncertainty, but much less charm in a machine confidently informing you that your own pre-AI writing was produced by AI, while also letting AI wander past dressed as a human. At that point, the system is less a detector and more a very assertive guesser with a nice interface.
This seems worse to me than just reading the text and coming to your own conclusion. At least a human reader can be wrong with a pleasing degree of hesitation, perhaps accompanied by a thoughtful frown. Pangram is putting out false answers with authority. It does not claim to be 100% accurate, which is fair enough, but if it is not certain then it should not sound certain.
And, as another data point, AI wrote the above from lines that I fed it and I think that it’s noticeably AI written just visibly. And Pangram states:
I’d advise caution if using this apparently 99.98% accurate service…..
This small painting is ‘A Memory’ by Eduardo Zamacois (1841-1871), painted in 1864, and it is easy at first to treat it as a modest little work in a rather splendid frame. And that’s fairly accurate, as the artist specialised in these little paintings, although the frame feels as if it had somewhat grander ambitions.
As is rather obvious to anyone looking at it, which I find is often a useful feature in art, the painting shows a figure standing beside a tree, apparently carving or marking something into the bark, with the title suggesting remembrance, affection or loss. It also seems to me, with my limited artistic knowledge and considerable confidence in deploying it, like a rather more modern painting than it actually is.
What makes it perhaps more poignant is the artist’s own short life. Zamacois was born in Bilbao in 1841, trained in Madrid and then moved to Paris, where he became successful at a notably young age. He was part of that nineteenth-century world of ambitious painters, salons, commissions and carefully observed genre scenes, and he seemed to be building exactly the sort of career that might have made him a much more prominent figure in European art. Then, rather inconveniently for art history and indeed even more inconveniently for himself, he died in Madrid in 1871 at the age of just 29.
If he had lived into middle age, he might have developed into a major Spanish or Basque painter of genre scenes, or perhaps moved in new directions as the art world changed around him. Perhaps this makes the title of the artwork even more poignant.
Conscious of the limitations of using AI, I wanted to use it here to see what the main character of the artwork might have looked like in the artist’s mind. I’d say that seems to be a good approximation although the graffiti seems a bit cruder than in the original.
200 years ago this week the Norwich Mercury printed this article:
“On Monday, during the election, Samuel Chenery, a lad of 16, was detected in picking the pocket of a gentleman, in the market, and lodged in the Vagrant Room in the Hall, where he soon after cut his throat. He was conveyed to the Hospital, and died on Wednesday morning.—Verdict, insanity.”
I’ve written numerous times about how Norwich 200 years ago was a city troubled with crime, poverty and mental instability. I assume that he was taken to St. Andrew’s Hall, which was the city’s workhouse at this time, which is where Samuel Chenery killed himself.
The lad was Samuel Haywood Chenery who was born on 19 March 1810, the son of Thomas Chenery and Elizabeth Chenery (nee Haywood). He was baptised on 25 March 1810 at St. Paul’s church in the city, a war damaged building unnecessarily pulled down in the 1970s for the flyover.
Samuel was buried at St. Augustine’s Church in Norwich on 25 June 1826, although those who died through suicide often weren’t buried in Church of England graveyards. I’m not entirely sure that there would have been a grave to him if the family were poor, but if there was, it’s not there now. Samuel’s Dad, Thomas, died on 12 April 1821 at the age of just 49 and is also buried at St. Augustine’s Church. Samuel’s Mum, Elizabeth, died on 16 May 1852 at the age of 80 and is also buried at the same church.
I do wonder how many times Samuel has been thought of over the last 200 years, whether he has been included in other family trees or his memory has been recorded elsewhere. But it appears from the information available that he was desperate financially and was unable to cope with what life had given him. At 16 years old, he was just a child.
The late night arrival of my flight meant that I knew I’d have to stay at Luton Airport for a couple of hours and then cross over to Stansted Airport by coach before getting a direct train to Norwich. That was the cheapest option and Pret was clean, warm and had power points. Thanks to the staff member for giving me a decadent coffee for a price of a filter coffee, much appreciated.
I was very tempted to book this, all I would have to do is go through security and then a few hours later I’d be in the great city of Tallinn. I showed enormous restraint not to book this £8.99 flight as it would have been easy to get muddled up.
I went outside to look at the coach station and it was still there.
The Stansted Airport coach pulls in.
It was a slightly odd arrangement, the driver said hello and disappeared into the coach. He seems surprised I was still obediently waiting at the door a few minutes later and he didn’t bother checking tickets. This rather made the whole operation feel less like formal transport and more like a man with a coach had agreed to take us somewhere broadly useful, but I’m easy going (well, generally) and so I didn’t query him.
I have a theory that National Express is going into a permanent decline, this service was a third full and was one of the busiest I’ve been on in a while. I looked at some of their prices, and they’re charging ridiculous amounts in some cases where they have a monopoly. That’s great for a while, but Flixbus is going to steal that trade and I can’t see how they’ll get it back. National Express also have fiercely uncomfortable seats with very limited leg room, it’s fortunate that they do shuttle about nearly empty a lot of the time. Incidentally, I didn’t get my usual emergency exit row seat here, which is likely why I forgot about how poor the leg room was in the other seats. Nothing says ‘premium national transport network’ like quietly folding a passenger into a seating position not found in nature, but we shall see what the future holds…..
Safely at Stansted Airport.
I had a few hours to kill so I went looking for bargains and found some in Boots. Note the number of reduced prawn sandwiches which is either a sign of my impeccable timing or a troubling commentary on airport seafood confidence.
Another breakfast of champions. The quality of Boots Meal Deal has declined a lot over the years, that’s another example of greed and then noticing that rivals have stolen a march on them. Still, it was edible, portable and reduced, which is sometimes the holy trinity of travel catering.
I then went down to Stansted Airport’s railway station to get the direct rail service to Norwich. There were no delays which meant no delay repay, but at least I’d be getting home in a timely manner. Punctuality is good, but it’s also rather lovely to have a little financial gesture when things go slightly wrong.
It was relatively quiet all the way to Norwich.
Cambridge South had opened the previous day and it was rather lovely to see it in operation, even if only from the passing train, which is exactly the sort of niche infrastructure excitement that keeps my two loyal blog readers on edge.
I, and the rest of the train, arrived back into Norwich on time and that’s another journey finished. I may or may not post more random stuff about the trip, I’ll leave that as a surprise because suspense is important in travel writing.
Incidentally, it was too hot in Norwich when I arrived.
I arrived safely at Bilbao Airport after some faffing about working out the airport bus. The temperature was much cooler than when I had arrived and there were a few brief moments of rain, as might be evident from the grey sky. At least it prepared me for what the weather was likely going to be like in the UK.
The terminal felt quite busy and there was a limited amount of seating available in the main section.
There was one of the quickest airport security processes to go through, it took under three minutes from walking into the area to leaving it.
I noticed that there was a VIP lane into security for decadent passengers such as Richard.
After a visit to the lounge, which I wrote about separately, I discovered that there was still no gate for my flight so I pottered about exploring the now relatively quiet airport. At least that meant I was able to examine a lot of airport infrastructure, although I did wonder whether I should have just spent another thirty minutes in the lounge eating chorizo.
This was a bit confusing, it’s the line for border control and there’s one agent dealing with passengers on the left and one agent behind four kiosks on the right. I thought I’d try the kiosk and it scanned my passport before stating “invalid passport”, so I assumed it was just for EU passports despite the number of people using it. I went back to the queue and the agent called over that I could just walk through and he’d open the gate. I wasn’t sure if EES was working and just reporting a failure, or whether they were bypassing it. Either way I haven’t got a stamp in my passport, although that appears to be quite random now at the EU borders, presumably to keep collectors of passport stamps emotionally unsettled.
As usual for Wizz Air, I found the boarding process to be well managed and it was clear which queue to get in.
As might be evident, the seating Gods gave me a window seat and I was very comfortable during the flight.
The outskirts of London somewhere. The flight itself was peaceful, the crew were friendly, no-one annoyed me, nothing fell off the aircraft and I spent two hours playing games on my phone instead of sleeping. This might not have been the most sensible life choice, but it kept me amused. The announcements from the pilots were clear, we landed on time and this was once again excellent value for £9 using my Wizz Air Multipass. For that amount, I require a seat, basic structural integrity and a landing broadly in the advertised country. All were achieved.
We boarded via an air bridge in Bilbao, so this is back in London Luton. The aircraft is G-WUKR which I’ve been on before when it brought me back to London Luton from Tallinn. I’m not sure why I am pleased to meet an aircraft again as I doubt it remembers me.
And the aircraft looking very lovely there in the middle.
There were long queues at London Luton as if they hadn’t expected some planes to land there, but the whole process took just under half an hour which ultimately wasn’t too bad. I then had an exciting few hours in the airport before getting a coach to Stansted and then a train to Norwich, but that riveting commentary can come in the next post as I would not want to overwhelm my two loyal blog readers with too much inter-airport glamour all at once.
This isn’t the ideal thing to see when arriving at an airport lounge, although it is in keeping with my comments a few days ago about how busy these areas are becoming. However, modern travel does like to introduce little tests of character before granting access to the crisps, so I’m quite patient with these matters.
Fortunately, there was a wait of only around five minutes, and the staff were being proactive at getting customers in, so the situation never developed into full lounge-based civil unrest.
I was asked if it would be OK if I sat at the high seating at the rear where there was more space. This wasn’t just OK, this was positively optimal. There were lots of power points, seats and space, this was one for the win and all that.
It was much better than all that low down seating.
This is the other end of the lounge and I took this photo on the way out when this area became quieter.
I tried not to be greedy, but I struggled to control my chorizo consumption if I’m being honest.
Later on, they brought out pizza, which I thought was most agreeable, as there are few travel problems that cannot at least be partially improved by the sudden appearance of carbohydrates.
There were five different beers available, and I tried them all in the interests of research, although none troubled my Untappd high scoring section. But there are definitely worse ways to wait for an aircraft than with bread, chorizo and beer.
Oh, and cheese, crisps, olives and pastries because apparently I had accidentally embarked on a full Mediterranean grazing strategy. But this is what happens when I’m left unattended and not supervised.
The entrance to the lounge was much quieter than when I arrived. With that, it was time to go and hunt for my gate. My flight was half an hour late, something which the staff member told me on entry but which wasn’t updated for some time on the screens, and I could have stayed in the lounge for longer but I still had to go through border control.
The lounge doesn’t get the best of reviews, but I liked it and thought that it seemed well managed. When it was very busy they were getting a little behind, but they soon caught up with cleanliness and food restocking, with the choice of food and drink being agreeable. Walk-up entrance would be £38.50 which feels rather high, but isn’t entirely unreasonable given that the lounge is comfortable and the dining options are acceptable. I used my annual Priority Pass card as usual so I didn’t have to dwell on the value for money arrangement.
I mentioned that getting the bus from Bilbao airport to the city centre was more complex than I would have liked, with the tourist information office explaining to me that the information on Google was incorrect. Most bus companies might respond to this by correcting the information, but evidently some prefer a more adventurous approach to public transport. Anyway, I thought that it would be easier coming back, which was a touching little moment of optimism.
This sign made no sense to me. It appeared to be the airport bus stop, and therefore the sort of place where an airport bus might reasonably stop. But on the little plan, it seemed to suggest that the bus actually stopped on the other side of the road. I decided this must just be me failing to interpret local bus signage correctly, so as I was early (well, obviously for me, I was heading to the airport), I walked the ten minutes to the next bus stop back along the route.
At the next stop, I was pleased to see three separate passenger groups with big bags who were evidently going to the airport. I decided to ask one of them if they were going to the airport and the friendly guy said yes and I was reassured that he was Spanish and so seemed to know what he was doing.
Anyway, the bus turns up and the driver says “this isn’t the airport stop”. I did wonder why a decision had been made to put the airport bus sign up at this location given that, but I didn’t want to sound like I was querying the local transport authorities. There were some discussions in Spanish and the outcome was that the driver said that the actual stop was 100 metres down the road and on the other side of the road. We got there and there was absolutely no airport bus signage there, but there was the airport bus and so that was a result.
The driver was very friendly and I got my favoured seat at the front, so all was well. But they wonder why people miss buses, it really shouldn’t be that difficult to put bus stop signs up at the right place and have buses stop at them. If it had just been myself that was muddled up, I would have assumed I was an idiot, but it was evident that others were also confused. Anyway, that meant that I was safely back at Bilbao Airport….
This is the former convent church of St. Francis and these are the oldest parts of the site. Most of this stonework dates from the fifteenth century and the only element not exposed is the apse. That remains underneath the current Civic Centre, and the authorities have apparently decided not to demolish an entire public building in the interests of archaeological completeness. This feels restrained, if slightly disappointing for those of us who enjoy history but do not have to manage civic budgets.
I’m standing on a raised platform here that would have been within the church and those rectangles are graves which were placed in the nave, in the chapels and also outside the church. There was a single nave which was 13 metres wide, with six chapels on either side and they seem to have used all of the space available.
The side chapels were paid for by wealthier members of Bilbao society, who evidently wanted a little posthumous exclusivity and a good spiritual position for the afterlife. In the Catholic world of the period, burial close to altars and sacred spaces mattered, and the church was not about fairness, it was about money.
The remains of the original pillars are still visible, and it is striking how deep some of the tombs once went. There is just enough here to understand the scale of the church, but it has been changed so much, and indeed nearly entirely demolished, which makes interpretation just a little more difficult.
I was encouraged by the Reproductions Museum to visit the nearby archaeological site at Heart of Mary Square in Bilbao, and I am pleased to report that I obeyed. It wasn’t clear to me if this site is routinely open to the public, I showed a ticket I was given and was escorted to this rather interesting little arrangement. This is the site of the old Convent of San Francisco, founded in 1498, including parts of its Gothic church, one of its cloisters and the Tertiary Room.
The convent did not have a quiet retirement after its closure in 1821 as the site was then used as a cemetery and a hospital, with the religious complex being mostly demolished over the next few decades. In 1865, the Cuartel del Príncipe Alfonso was built on the same site, replacing the vanished convent with military architecture and giving the ground yet another role in Bilbao’s history.
However, in 2005, the archaeological remains of the religious site were excavated and all remains of the former barracks, as well as the school buildings constructed in 1931 were removed. These photos show the former cloisters area and the survival of this helps give a shape to the rest of the remains.
I will come back to the ‘Giants and Bigheads’ in another post, because they deserve separate treatment and also because it is not every day that archaeology is interrupted by what appear to be enormous ceremonial people waiting patiently indoors.
