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Wed­nes­day, 14^th April, 2004

Long day star­ted with a mad dash to Bayeux to see the nearly 1000 year old Bayeux Tapestry. This is a 70 metre long piece of linen detail­ing the story of Wil­liam the Con­queror and the battle of Hast­ings in 1066AD. Made in the years fol­low­ing, each frieze (story-picture) tells a part of the story of Anglo-Saxon King Har­old and his break­ing of a vow to Wil­liam to hand over the king­ship of Eng­land to the Nor­man after the death of Edward the Con­fessor. The Tapestry is a sight to behold: an import­ant part of history.

To sim­plify it down to mod­ern day terms, the Tapestry is like a car­toon that was ori­gin­ally destined for the Bayeux Cathedral.

We drove along the A13 return­ing the car to Paris. Did we say that driv­ing and nav­ig­at­ing in Paris is like a very large provi­cial French city? That is, its very very dif­fi­cult. After almost being involved in a 20-tonne truck vs. Fiat 500 (you can guess who won) and prob­ably charged for speed­ing, we return the car and find we have less than 5 hours in Paris. There­fore, the only fam­ous part of Paris we see this trip is a glimpse of the Eif­fel Tower in the dis­tance. Oh, well. Note to self(selves). Don’t hire cars in Paris.

Ulti­mately, we’ve made the cor­rect decision to see a piece of his­tory that is 1000 years old vs. some­thing a mere 120 years old.

Thank­fully, Gard Paris Bercy has a great wait­ing area for people stay­ing in sleep­ers on the Paris-Venice train. Also great secur­ity. Paris trans­port police (gen­darmarie) are check­ing the Gard, and the trains in the yard close to our wait­ing area.

It’s a shame to leave France. We’ve really enjoyed the Nor­mandy exper­i­ence, and cer­tainly my opin­ion of the French and their lan­guage has been pos­it­ively effected.

Board at 7.30pm, depart Gard at 9.30pm. I have a two-berth sleeper cabin to myself and attempt to sleep. Evid­ently we pass through Switzer­land on the trip south. Asleep in France, nudged awake every stop and rise in Italy.

Tues­day, 13^th April, 2004

Accord­ing to our French wait­ress at an Italian res­taur­ant last night, I pro­nounce French with a Ger­man accent. Ouch! If you don’t speak French, you can get away with things. How­ever, when life gets more com­plic­ated: like your Opel is fall­ing apart, you need a nat­ive tongue to assist.

At least my driv­ing (on the left hand side) on French roads is bet­ter than my language!

“Nor­mal”, and I chal­lenge someone to define nor­mal, fam­il­ies would have their hol­i­days on or near a beach. The Hodge’s are no dif­fer­ent, how­ever the beaches we are vis­it­ing are major bat­tle­field sights in Spring. We are not going for the sun and surf, but the his­tory of these beaches.

Today we start in Ran­ville, just to the east of Pegasus Bridge. This was the eastern-most flank of the Brit­ish sec­tor on D-Day, and a set of two key bridges that the Allies wanted to keep open for advances into France. This par­tic­u­lar battle in the D-Day mosaic was pop­ular­ised by a book by Stephen Ambrose, Pegasus Bridge. Again, the strength of on-the-ground lead­er­ship shows through here. Two large tour buses of Eng­lish tour­ists are here at the same time. Attempt­ing to shop in the fam­ous Cafe Gon­dree makes one think that the Eng­lish are invad­ing again, or have for­got­ten that this is now French soil.

Off to a second layer of the Atlantic wall defenses code­named Hill­man: here Liam and Avril crawl around/in the remain­ing Ger­man bunker sys­tem. The field of fire and view is inter­est­ing, and once you stand in these places you get an idea of how these defenses were planned and used.

Through Sword Beach (now Ouistreham) to Lion-sur-Mer to see one of Hobart’s Fun­nies (spe­cial ver­sion of a Churchill Tank) and on to the middle of the Cana­dian sec­tor (Juno Beach).

After passing through the Gold sec­tor, we arrive at Arro­manches. Here there is an impress­ive sight of the remain­ing “Mul­berry har­bour” (named Port Churchill) where the Allies cre­ated a har­bour to per­mit logist­ical resup­ply of the Battle of Nor­mandy. 20+ of these Mul­ber­ries are still in the har­bour, but are slowly dis­in­ter­grat­ing. An impress­ive sight.

Drop in to the Musée Débarquement for a quick look. Prob­ably yhe most well kept museum in the region. Although we can but won­der why there are mil­it­ary weapons from neut­ral coun­tries on display.

Liam has his photo taken with more Sher­man tanks. There are more Sher­man tanks per square Km than any­where on earth here.

We arrive at another bunker at Longues-sur-Mer: here the Kriegs­mar­ine cre­ated bat­ter­ies taken out quite sur­gic­ally by the Navy (includ­ing the HMS Bel­fast). The ori­ginal large cal­ibre ex-Navy guns still sit in their bunker sys­tems: evid­ently, the farmer paid scrap mer­chants money to leave them in place. Behind, a tem­por­ary air­field was setup.

Our final stop series focuses on Omaha Beach: the scene of the worst of the fight­ing and the most tenu­ous hold on the pen­in­sula. It was where the first waves of the Amer­ican troops (1^st Divi­sion and 29^th Divi­sion) were cut down by strong defense. Hav­ing now been in many of the beaches, and com­par­ing Utah to Omaha, it is easy to see why so many (>3000) became cas­u­al­ties. A sober­ing place.

Our time with Geert, and in the D-Day part of Nor­mandy is at a sad end. We can only strongly recom­mend Bat­tle­bus from Bayeux as Guides, and spe­cific­ally Geert as a guide. If you can stretch to a per­sonal guided tour we also sug­gest this as a good strategy.

Monday, 12^th April, 2004

Hello from Basse Nor­man­die, or Lower Nor­mandy. We are off in the Opel (Ger­man) hire car to Bayeux to col­lect our per­sonal tour guide for the next two days, Geert. After a quick piece of luck/good nav­ig­a­tion we find him in Place du Que­bec in Bayeux, just around the corner from the fam­ous nearly 1000 year old Bayeux Tapestry.

Geert, is an expert in the area and on the “D-Day” and “Battle of Nor­mandy” — and this is the reason we are at the beaches. Not for Beach weather, as although its fine and sunny — the tem­per­at­ure is about 12degC today. Per­fect Bat­tle­field tour weather.

This area has a rich his­tory, most recently (ie: last 1300 years) of Nor­man occu­pa­tion. The Nor­mans (or Norse-men) were “vik­ings” from north­ern Europe who invaded and essen­tially took over this cent­ral part of France. In 1066 they invaded the island next door (Eng­land) and took over. Wil­liam the Con­queror build his castle next door to where we are stay­ing in Caen. More on this later.

In more recent times, that is 60 years ago, over a mil­lion men from Eng­land and the US lib­er­ated Nor­mandy on the 6^th of June 1944 to free the French from their Ger­man invaders. Even today, the French cel­eb­rate (revere might be a bet­ter word) this time — and tour­ism related to this part of their his­tory is a sig­ni­fic­ant industry. In June 2004, Geert informs us this part of France will be full of vet­er­ans, world lead­ers (12 expec­ted) and tourists.

Bat­tle­bus, the oper­a­tion Geert works for, is offer­ing a ser­vice to vet­er­ans as a “taxi ser­vice” rather than tour oper­ator, dur­ing prob­ably the last major memorial to this sig­ni­fic­ant time in world history.

Our first offi­cial port of call is Saint Mere-Eglise (accents left off on pur­pose!). Here, the 82^nd Air­borne divi­sion were tasked with secur­ing bridge­heads and tak­ing over the com­mu­nic­a­tions hub for the Cher­bourg pen­in­sula. Its dif­fi­cult to retell the stor­ies we heard today. What is very con­front­ing is hear­ing how men fought, died, won, lost and acted in a fash­ion that is dif­fi­cult to fathom in these mod­ern times.

This is the point to talk about the cent­ral theme of this tour: cor­rect­ing a per­cep­tion of his­tory given to us by movies such as “Sav­ing Private Ryan” and “The Longest Day” and the mini-series “Band of Broth­ers”. Its no so much that these movies are incor­rect, more that dra­matic license has been taken by scriptwriters to make stor­ies come alive in a filmic sense. The real­ity is easier to under­stand when you walk the ground.

After a short visit to the museum, which attempts to tell a story, we are off to places closer to the coast. On the way to Utah Beach, we call into a small monu­ment at Beuzeville au Plain (Nor­mandy is full of these monu­ments) to the crew and pas­sen­gers of a C-47 trans­port plane that crashed about 1 mile out of town. This C-47 car­ried the HQ of Easy Com­pany of the 506^th PIR, 101^st Air­borne. If you have seen “Band of Broth­ers”, you might recall this as the cent­ral Com­pany as depicted.

At Exit-2 of Utah Beach there is a museum and the Roosevelt Cafe. As we are being privately guided, we get to see more than nor­mal vis­it­ors. Again, his­tory comes alive. It is named Roosevelt as Teddy Roosevelt’s son was the Gen­eral who very ably led at this sec­tor. In the dis­tance, you can see Point-du-Hoc.

On the way to Point-du-Hoc, Geerts takes us on a detour to a spe­cial farm, Brecourt Manor. This is a work­ing farm; there are cows in the fields and horses in the stables. It smells of diesel, grease, horse dung and cow manure. Just to the right of the manor house there is a field that is shown in “Band of Broth­ers” (Day of Days epis­ode): this is the story of how Capt. Win­ters led a very suc­ces­fully attack on a bat­tery of four 105mm guns aimed at Utah Beach. Again, vis­it­ing the area makes it quite clear why the bat­tery was here, and brings to life the small battle in a day of battles. In one of the cor­rec­tions, Geert explains why the guns were not 88mm as talked about in the min­iser­ies, but rather lar­ger cal­ibre. This part of today is what I have found the most valuable.

What is very inter­est­ing about this par­tic­u­lar stop is that it is not sign­posted. There is no “tour­ist shop” to trap people. There is no memorial or monu­ment. Tak­ing the per­sonal guided tour with Geert has bought us closer to the hero­ism of the day. Its also inter­est­ing that Spiel­berg and Hanks have vis­ited the manor to get a first hand under­stand­ing of this par­tic­u­lar piece of history.

On through Ste Marie-du-Mont, to “Dead Man’s Corner” on the road to Car­entan. Eat­ing a quick lunch at this cross­roads under­val­ues the his­tory, and the fact that a sol­dier died in his Stu­art tank attack­ing this corner. When you sit and take it all in, see­ing the ground you feel the history.

His­tory is every­where. Manor houses, high walls and build­ings date from 700 or 800 years ago. These older pieces of Nor­mandy his­tory pass us by as we travel through thin lane­ways and high Boc­age (hedgerows). The hedges are made of vines impor­ted by the Nor­mans as a replace­ment to fences. There are many, many small fields inter­spersed with these single-car sunken lane­ways. This geo­graphy is explained to you in books, but until you are in it — its dif­fi­cult to feel out what these sol­diers had to deal with. Also, after being “on the ground”, you can feel the ten­ous grip the Allies had on “Fort­ress Europe” within that first day.

Other pieces of his­tory pass us by: Fon­ten­bleau is near here, where Eliza­beth Taylor and Richard Bur­ton were mar­ried the second time. Isigny-sur-Mer is the home of the ancest­ors of Walt Dis­ney (Dis­ney comes from d’Isigny or from Isigny: where a fam­ous Nor­man fam­ily who invaded Eng­land came from) . Also the field where the French got rid of the Eng­lish from their soil in the 16^th Cen­tury. All within minutes drive from each other.

We visit Point-du-Hoc, a point at the top of a 150 foot cliff-face that has a field of fire that cov­ers the water dir­ectly infront of both Utah and Omaha beaches. Here, the Ger­mans had emplace­ments and guns that were over­run dur­ing D-Day by a regi­ment of Rangers. Out of 220 men, only 90 left. Walk­ing around the still-cratered ground where 600 tonnes of explos­ive were used, and see­ing bunkers (rein­forced cement 4–6 feet wide) untouched (but pock-marked with 20mm rounds etc) or com­pletely blown to pieces the size of cars (in the case of the ammuni­tion dump) — its a small piece of land held for nearly two days from 1000 Ger­mans. The “Longest Day” did not do justice to the stra­tegic import­ance of this piece of land. Simple con­glom­er­ate rock (clay, very unstable) that has a clear view for miles around.

On our way to the fam­ous US Mil­it­ary Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, we call into a small vil­lage cemetery in St. Laurent. Here there are three graves of Com­mandos who lost their life here in Septem­ber 1942. Each has a story. All were young.

In con­trast, the US cemetery, as dis­played at the beginning/end of “Sav­ing Private Ryan” is over­whelm­ing. 9487 graves (includ­ing 4 women) to US sol­diers, sail­ors and air­men (with a wall over over 1000 miss­ing to the rear) all in rows is a sight to behold.

For the first time today, I refrained from tak­ing many pho­tos. The only photo I took does not show the name of the sol­dier, nor shows a full grave­stone. This place is spe­cial. Its not a tour­ist attrac­tion. It is extremely dif­fi­cult to explain the sight of 9000 grave­stones per­fectly aligned. Each per­son has a story, and did not return to the US.

I was unaware that the Cemetery was on one of the exits from Omaha beach. There are many pieces of sym­bol­ism here.

My over­all impres­sions from today are var­ied. Firstly, the local French feel­ing of “lib­er­a­tion” by the Allies is a deeply held belief. This “lib­er­a­tion” has expressed itself as respect, and cer­tainly not exploit­a­tion. The areas are closer than I expec­ted, and the phys­ical dam­age whilst vis­ible in some areas: life has gone on for the locals.

Nor­mandy is the land where the decend­ents of the Nor­mans lib­er­ated their historically-removed cousins.

Sunday, 11^th April, 2004

Up early to catch the Eurostar through the Eur­o­tun­nel to spend Euros in main­land Europe. Taxi ride to Water­loo sta­tion, where quite iron­ic­ally French immig­ra­tion offi­cials stamp us into France. Even though we are in Water­loo sta­tion, Lon­don. Strange.

Due to depart at 8.01am, we leave 4 minutes late. For­given, con­sid­er­ing we are three in a cabin with six other people; in a cabin that can hold around 50 — so its vir­tu­ally sit any­where. Break­fast is served with real cut­lery. Friendly staff serve the best trans­port food I have eaten in a while. His­tor­ic­ally I have been anti-train travel. This European train travel appeals to me.

We’re through Brix­ton and into the fields of Eng­land. We quickly run out of Eng­land, we are are into the Chan­nel Tun­nel (called Eur­o­tun­nel) for 20 minutes. Then we are really in France. It seems that the speed limit for trains in France is higher than Eng­land. We are doing at least another 40km/hr in France.

Out­side the win­dow, you can see many grave­yards and grave­stones of allied sol­diers. We’re right in the midst of WW1 bat­tle­fields. Vis­it­ing here will wait for another day.

Gard Nord (North Ter­minal), rental car and exper­i­ence the pleas­ure of driv­ing through Paris, around the Periphique (Ring Road) via the A13 to Caen. (I can­not trans­late how to pro­nounce this!)

Avril goes wild (puts the foot down) once we find that the good-weather speed limit on the A13 is 130km/hr. Con­sid­er­ing we paid 11.50 euro for the pleas­ure of driv­ing on this high­way, we get as much value as pos­sible. There were 4 peages (French for Tollgates) along the 230kms from Paris to Caen.

Hotel, bed and ready for a new day in Normandie.

Avril and Liam attack Caen. Takes less than 10 minutes. Took Monty 3 weeks.


Fields of Nor­man­die


A13 out­side Paris, on the way to Caen


Arrival at Gard Nord


We’re in France!


Not much to see in the Eur­o­tun­nel


Inside the Eurostar cabin


The Eurostar ter­minal at Water­loo is just like an air­port ter­minal. Only without planes and a run­way. And a bazil­lion Star­bucks.


Cab to Water­loo with Santa


US Mil­it­ary Cemetery, Col­leville, Nor­mandy


Dam­age to Ger­man metal bunker from Sher­man 75mm. Taken from Cher­bourg to Nor­mandy


Part of Bat­tle­ments, Point-du-Hoc, Nor­mandy


Blown-up Ammuni­tion Bunker, Point-du-Hoc, Nor­mandy


Field of fire from Case­ment Bunker, Point-du-Hoc look­ing toward Utah Beach, Nor­mandy


Point-du-Hoc: craters, Nor­mandy


Battle dam­age to the rear of Case­ment, Point-du-Hoc, Nor­mandy


Geert and Liam, a Tro­bruk, Point-du-Hoc, Nor­mandy


field near Brecourt Manor, Nor­mandy


inside Com­mu­nic­a­tions Bunker, Utah Beach. Not on the map.


Nick on Utah Beach


Memorial to downed C-47 con­tain­ing HQ of Easy Com­pany, 506 PIR, 101^st Air­borne.


Rear of C-47 at museum in Ste Mere Eglase


Liam, Avril and Geert near Waco Glider


Nick and Sher­man Tank


Battle dam­age still vis­ible (9mm) in Ste Mere Eglise


Para­chut­ist dummy, on Church tower, Ste Mere Eglise


Geert our Bat­tle­bus guide, Ste Mere Eglise


"I'll see you on the beach". Nick on Omaha Beach


Geert guides Avril and Liam over E-3 exit defenses over Easy Beach


Skoda Gun at Battery at Longues-sur-Mer


Nick overlooking Mulberries at Arromanches


Liam and DD-(swimming) Sherman tank at Juno Beach (recovered from sea)


Nick and famous house on Canadian Juno Beach


Liam in bunker looking west over Juno Beach


Liam and AVRE (Hobart's Funnies) at Lion-sur-Mer


Avril and Liam at “Hill­man” strong-point


Avril, Liam and Geert at “Hill­man” strong-point


Tank over­look­ing (new) Pegasus Beach


Liam and Avril cross Pegasus Bridge from east-to-west (toward the cafe)


Train out of Paris


Avril read­ing paper wait­ing for train in Paris


Liam at entrance to Bayeux Tapestry, Bayeux


Liam and Avril at entrance to Bayeux Tapestry, Bayeux


DD Sher­man, near Juno Beach, Nor­mandy


Pho­to­grpah from the land­ing site of the first Glider towards Pegasus Bridge, Nor­mandy


Phys­ical edivence you shouldn’t give teen­agers dynam­ite, Point Du Hoc, Nor­mandy


Battle dam­age from small arms fire, Point Du Hoc, Nor­mandy


Liam attempts to repair Point Du Hoc, Nor­mandy


Geert and Avril inside a bunker, Point du Hoc, Nor­mandy


Look­ing down on the sea, Point du Hoc, Nor­mandy


Cause­way to Car­entan, Nor­mandy


The Boc­age, Nor­mandy


Battle Dam­ange, St Mere Eglise, Nor­mandy

Sunday, 18^th April, 2004

Eurostar out of Venice to Florence. Strangely, it departs on time and we are whisked away from Italian tour­ist trap #1.

There is not a soul (well, just a few + air-rats) in the square at 8.00am in the morn­ing. Evid­ently, the square was under water in the early morning.

Sat­urday, 17^th April, 2004

Liam and I feed the air-rats (pigeons) in the square, and visit the Doge’s Palace (the Doge was the elec­ted Duke of the Repub­lic of Venice, and walk across the Bridge of Sighs to see the prisons.

Up the clock tower for a view out over Venice from 60metres up. Liam and I then jump on the Vapor­etto for a ride to an over­priced Leonardo exhibit in an old Church.

The local Italian “Top of the Pops” reminds me of the Euro­vi­sion song contest.

Avril spends a couple of hours madly pack­ing her pur­chases. Its not the cost, is the space/weight these items are — we have to carry these cases!

Quickly pur­chase some final items from Venice and we are ready to go in the morning!

Fri­day, 16^th April, 2004

I have a day by myself to roam around Venice (and appro­pri­ately get lost!) Not to panic. Venice isn’t dan­ger­ous; there are only pick­pock­ets and as long as you fol­low some simple rules, you are safe enough.

Firstly to the Aca­demia: a gal­lery of 14^th to 18^th Cen­tury art. My poor Prot­est­ant mind can­not deal with the mul­ti­tude of cath­olic scenes of the Vir­gin and Child (et al). Impress­ive art, how­ever. Then onto the Peggy Gug­gen­heim gal­lery of mod­ern art (late 19^th Cen­tury to mid 20^th Cen­tury). Again, my poor Pro­vin­cial mind can­not deal with the artistic input. Squeeze past a Picasso against the traffic of Amer­ican stu­dents to see Magrette and Mon­drian pieces. Also a Dali is here too (Birth of Liquid Desires)

Jump on a Vapor­etto for a free trip. I have yet to see a local Vene­tian pay for their water bus. We tour­ists are pay­ing for their free ser­vice! I do get the guilts and pur­chase a day pass and travel to the Lido and Pte Roma for a quick visit to a supermarket.

Quick visit to a jew­eller to pick up Avril’s birth­day present.

Thursday, 15^th April, 2004

Arrive in Venice at around 9.35am on Thursday. Short walk along the train to the Grand Canal, jump on the Vapor­etto #1 to Piazza San Marco (Saint Mark’s Square) and find the hotel. We are in at 11am.

Ima­gine this: a unique town that is trapped in the sea. It’s dif­fi­cult to get on and off. Filled with noth­ing but stores selling items that say you have been to the town. It’s last time as an inde­pend­ent town was over 250 years ago, and as a power­ful town over 400 years ago. All that is left is tour­ism. The treas­ures left from this era are all still here. A marketeer’s dream tour­ist trap. Wel­come to Venice.

Thank­fully, the high tides at the moment are in the middle of the night: so the Piazza is only flooded when we are asleep. We see the evid­ence of this in the early mornings.

Eat our first non-pre-made/pre-package sand­wiches in a small cafe. Avril and I leave Liam in the hotel room whilst we do a quick visit to the Ponte Rialto (Rialto bridge) to see what is going on. To meas­ure the “value” shops offer, we take some indic­at­ive prices: ties at 8 euro, fridge mag­nets at 4 euro to determ­ine which stores and which areas at the most appro­pri­ate to pur­chase from. In the case of silk ties, they range in price from 7 euro to 8 euro.

Its also dif­fi­cult to find a shop that doesn’t sell glass, masks or jewellery.

Oh, a tip for Venice trav­el­lers eat­ing out: do not order from the Eng­lish menu: ser­vice is not included! This is an extra “fee” added to the bill. This “fee” is included in the Italian menu.

Thursday, 22^nd April, 2004

Train travel is Italy is easy. No xray secur­ity, on time, carry and pack your own bag­gage, quick turn around time (in and out of stations)

We leave on time from Florence to Rome. 9.53am to 11.30am.

Wed­nes­day, 21^st April, 2004

9.30am, Statue of David. This is a statue that the Repub­lic of Florence com­mis­sioned from Michelan­gelo — as the “sym­bol” of the repub­lic. The “David vs. Goliath” (was the Goliath Rome or Venice?) Whilst David’s hands and feet are a little over­sized, the “alive­ness” of the statue is amaz­ing. You expect David to turn and speak. Amaz­ing work. Almost everything else in the Acca­demia is dwarfed.

Bartolini’s sculp­tures in the last room are equis­ite. Espe­cially when you com­pare the qual­ity of women in marble to Michelangelo.

We found a large toystore on the return to the cent­ral city. We pass by the Grand Hotel and quickly pop into the Ogn­is­santi. There is a 13^th Cen­tury mon­astry here. We just pop in and have a look at the fres­cos that adorn the walls and ceil­ings. Amaz­ing. This is off the tour­ist map, so we are alone here. And it was free.

On a trip to some other mar­ket, some­where across town, we come across the Santa Croce church. This holds the tomb of Machiavelli, among oth­ers (Mar­coni, Galileo, Dante to name but a few), but the amaz­ing part is the mon­astry on the outside.

The best gelati in Florence: Vivoli, Via dell Isola Della Stinche.

Our hotel in Florence is dir­ectly above the Prada store. There are always people stand­ing out­side hav­ing their pho­tos taken with the Prada store.

Tues­day, 20^th April, 2004

Tues­day morn­ing, and we go into the Duomo to see the major centre of Florence. This is very impressive.

We amble past the Gal­leria that dis­plays the Statue of David: the line is long, so we find a museum that sells pre-booked tick­ets, and grab that for 9.30 tomor­row morning.

Then its off to a quick bite (Cafe de Let­izia, on Via Vac­cherec­cia) before hit­ting the Uff­izi. To enter the Uff­izi you pass through the x-ray secur­ity. Maybe need bet­ter secur­ity out­side to get rid of the vendors in the piazza outside.

Inside the Uff­izi, up the mul­tiple flights of stairs (102 steps) there are masses of “Madonna with Child” paint­ings dat­ing from the 12^th Cen­tury onwards. To this small prot­est­ant mind, the ador­a­tion of the Madonna (in some pic­tures sym­bol­ic­ally above the apostles, and being crowned by Christ in another) doesn’t seem right.

Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” is in a lar­ger room: appro­pri­ately as this is the high­light of the Uff­izi. It holds the crowds as they view their first “pagan” image in a largely cath­olic dis­play up until this point. And being half naked doesn’t hurt the pop­ular­ity, either.

102 steps down, through 7 (that’s right: seven!) dif­fer­ent gift shops before exit­ing via the Post office. The last half of the Uff­izi just doesn’t inspire.

Avril goes off to do some more dam­age to the credit cards whilst Liam and I go relic hunt­ing. Rel­ics are a relic of the church in pre-reformation times. Pil­grims would visit churches to see a piece of the true cross, and pray for a mir­acle. We look for the “Holy Hand Gren­ade of Anti­och”, but can­not find it in Florence.

Liam and I also visit the Cap­palle Medici, where there are massive tombs for the Medici. Inside there is a Michelan­gelo marble art piece. It looks like he never saw a naked woman!

We eat at La Spada. Tuscan food rocks! Talk about max­imum taste. Best food I’ve eaten since New Zealand.

Monday, 19^th April, 2004

Bells. Out­side our win­dow there is a Church bell­tower that rang at 7:00am for 52 rings. I am not sure of the religious/cultural sig­ni­fic­ance of 52, but awake we must.

Sunday, 18^th April, 2004

Cars. After being in Venice, cut off from cars for 3 days, it’s the first thing you notice.

We walk to our pen­sione (Florentine for hotel room), sans TV and Tele­phone. Evid­ently, people do not get a chance to use these in Florence as they are out and about too much.

I have described Venice as the per­fectly designed tour­ist trap. Florence is run­ning a very close second. Whilst the stores in the street are very dif­fer­ent and offer greater vari­ety, there are more “attrac­tions” here. How­ever much the Statue of David (by Michaelan­gelo) cost the good Bur­gers of Florence in the 16^th Cen­tury, it has returned this many times over. “David” fig­ur­ines, pic­tures, under­wear, fridge mag­nets, books, plates: everything has “David” in his naked­ness emblazened some­where. Botticelli’s “Venus” from the paint­ing “Birth of Venus” runs a dis­tant second.

The height of per­fect design is the Ponte Vec­chio. Ima­gine this: a bridge over the river Arno, with only two ends with only two ways of escape. On each side of this bridge there are win­dows offer­ing a mul­ti­tude of gold and sil­ver (I didn’t see other types here, but I could be wrong) “things” of all descrip­tions ran­ging in price from a cheap 40 euro to unmarked (if you have to ask, you can­not afford). Behind these win­dows are small stores selling what is in the win­dows. There has to be more than 50 of these stores ready and wait­ing to eat your plastic alive.

We smartly find the line to pur­chase tick­ets to the Uff­izi is now at zero, so we book reser­va­tions for a tour on Wed­nes­day. As the lines are stu­pidly long for this and the Acca­demia (where the real statue of David rests) this was a good find. Even if it cost 3 euro more each.

Sunday, 25^th April, 2004

It’s a hol­i­day in Italy/Rome. And a Sunday, so the pop­u­la­tion is a little sleepy. We jump in a taxi and head to Rome Ciampino Air­port. Seat belts are optional, even as Police pass us by on the way. How­ever, when we reach the air­port, seat beats become com­puls­ory as the Cara­bin­iari are armed here.

The Brits stock up on booze (the taxes are lower in Europe than in the UK)

We are fly­ing Ryanair from Rome to Lon­don, Stan­stead (not Heath­row). Ryanair is one of these new no-frills air­lines. Sub­sequently, its a mad scramble to grab seats on the plane. There is one class of seat: eco­nomy. The plane is new, a 737–800: much newer than most of the Qantas planes I have flown on recently.

How­ever, there is a spe­cial trav­el­ler on this flight. The first two rows of seats have been marked as “reserved”. I thought it might be the Queen, but this is unlikely as Ryanair is an Repub­lic of Ire­land based air­line, and Stan­stead is just too far away from Buck­ing­ham Palace.

A single per­son sits in the first row, with the other 11 seats in the first two rows left empty. There is a clear buf­fer between him and the rest of the plane. So much for a single class. We assume he is someone import­ant from the air­line, as he is intro­duced to the crew.

We leave 15 minutes early from Rome, and arrive in Lon­don 30 minutes early.

Arre­vaderci Roma!

Sat­urday, 24^th April, 2004

Liam and I go off to re-invade the Vat­ican Museum and the Sis­tine Chapel. In Rome, everything includ­ing the Met.ro (what the Romans have called their 2 under­ground lines.) has graf­fiti all over. The Vat­ican, includ­ing the out­side walls are untouched. It seems that some things are still sac­red in Rome.

The Met.ro has two lines: Linea A and Linea B. The last time I looked, this was also the names given to the two forms of Minoan Script that we have yet to decipher. The Met.ro is as quick as the Lon­don Under­ground, although the drivers seems to think they are Fan­gio as they accelerate/decelelarate as if they are in For­mula 1 cars.

At the Vat­ican Museum, which to me seems like a long slowly pro­gress­ing line to the holy-of-holies: Sis­tine Chapel. As one of the Pope’s didn’t like ‘dangly bits’ on their art­work, someone made a killing in Marble Fig Leaf Attachments.

Its a downer that the Etrus­cian Museum at the Vat­ican is closed. In fact, the church has attemp­ted to cover over the Roman part of Rome’s his­tory dur­ing the last 1700 years. I think I saw more in London’s “Museum of London”

Before we get to the Sis­tine, there is an impress­ive gal­lery called the Geo­graphia. The art­work here is impressive.

After fight­ing pla­toons of Japan­ese Tour­ists and Tour­guides, we arrive at the Sis­tine Chapel. It is impress­ive. No pho­tos. No video. Silen­cio. In the chapel, there are 2000 people look­ing upwards and 20 guards remind­ing people of the three rules. Even after hear­ing in 5 lan­guages “No pho­tos. No Video. Silen­cio”, people break the rules. The chapel is like that fam­ous scene in Hitchcock’s “The Birds” — where the birds are in the street, quite quiet just walk­ing around with a low “mur­mur” of bird sounds. The Sis­tine was just like this!

Liam and I branch off to the Cap­it­oline Museums and see the fam­ous “She Wolf Romu­lus Remus” statue, along with many other things that are fam­ous that we ignora­musi pass by/photograph quickly.

On the return, we hear an Aus­tralian tour­guide, Michael, who works for a guided tour com­pany called ‘Roman Odys­sey’, give an out­stand­ing free tour inside the Roman Forum. Seems like a character.

Before we hit the Col­loseo, it starts to rain. Liam and I are “hailed” at the Col­loseo (hail from the sky) before we hit the hotel.

In the even­ing, we visit Avril’s friend. See a Roman Acque­duct. Yes, “What have the Roman’s done for us?”

Fri­day, 23^rd April, 2004

Today we decide to take the tour­ist “cheats” way out, and jump onto two of those organ­ised tours. Mainly to assist with trans­port aspects, and also to squeeze as much in as pos­sible in the short few days we have in Roma.

On police mat­ters first. There are Muni­cipal Police. There is the Pol­izia. There is also the Cara­bin­ieri. Evid­ently, they all have the same powers of arrest. Cer­tainly the Pol­izia I saw car­ried weapons. Why don’t any of them arrest people who triple park their cars? Or park their cars across ped­es­trian walk ways? Pro­tec­tion seems to be over done, yet there is underpolicing!

We first land near the Fontana di Trevi. This is a tour­ist con­struct that has the biggest guilt trip attached: if you throw a coin into this foun­tain, you will one day return to Rome. Every­one wants to live a long time, so of course we expect to come back one day. In goes many euro cents. Thank­fully, the money goes to the Cath­olic Caritas Agency.

The Pan­theon: one of the only ori­ginal Roman era build­ings in the centre of the city is amaz­ing. Con­sid­er­ing the size of the dome, and the qual­ity of the art­work — it’s the high­light of the visit to Rome so far. The church has decided that wor­ship­ping the Pagan gods isn’t right, so its now a church with a Papal bless­ing. Just like the Col­loseo, it has saved the build­ing from deconstruction.

Avril notices that the air is cleaner now than 20 years ago, and the streets are less con­ges­ted. Evid­ently the “Res­id­ents only” rule for cars, and the newer and cleaner burn­ing cars have cre­ated a much cleaner environment.

Many things have SPQR writ­ten over them. I saw this in the many, many Asterix com­ics I read as a younger per­son. SPQR stands for “Sen­ate and People of Rome” Cool. Now I know.

One the travels through the streets of Rome, we see a poster for a movie “Luther” star­ring Joseph Fiennes. Mar­tin Luther began the ser­i­ous part of the Reform­a­tion and split­ting of Prot­est­ants from the Cath­olic Church in the early 16^th Cen­tury. Luther vis­ited Rome whilst still a Cath­olic priest, and his ques­tion­ing of the faith he belonged to (amongst many other trans­gres­sions of the then Cath­olic Church) res­ul­ted in a return to a much more basic Chris­tian faith. See­ing this movie poster spot­ted around Rome is rather ironic.

The tour guide takes time out to plug some­thing called the “Peace Cross”. Not to spoil the trip for the faith­ful, I keep quiet. The tour stops at a store, we get off and are accos­ted by sales staff attempt­ing to sell us this “Peace Cross” that is “blessed by the Cath­olic Church”. Avril found in the Vat­ican Souvenir shop (run by Nuns) a little sign that stated that is is “not the Church’s policy to sell blessed souven­irs”. This whole “Peace Cross” is an attempt to fleece naive faith­ful tour­ists. Being going on for cen­tur­ies here.

We head into the Vat­ican, after strict x-rays, and view St. Peter’s. Inside it’s amaz­ing to see the wealth of the church plastered onto the walls in enough gold leaf to pay off third world debt. We see Michelangelo’s first Pieta, but make a bee-line to under­neath where the crypt con­tain­ing all the dead Popes (includ­ing the 33-day John Paul I). The first Pope, Peter the Apostle, is bur­ied here too evidently.

Accord­ing to the tour guide, send­ing a post­card from the Vat­ican is “a done thing”. We con­vi­ently for­get to do this.

I feel really sad for those who come to Rome for a Pil­grim­age. You just wouldn’t feel spe­cial com­ing to Rome with all these tourists.

After a great lunch, and view­ing the world go by for 30 minutes or so (watch­ing the cars, the Ford Ka is big!) Liam and I rejoin the after­noon tour.

A visit to the Cap­atoline Hill, then off to the biggest rip-off: St Pauls. This is a big church (again) where Paul is bur­ied; and is out­side the walls of Rome. Not much to see here.

We pass by what is left of the Cir­cus Max­imus. Now very much Cir­cus Min­imus as that all is left is the space, not the bricks or marble.

Liam and I split off from the main tour and head back to the hotel. Liam and Avril recon­nect and go off for dinner.

Dur­ing the day, we count 40 MINIs, includ­ing 3 MINI Cooper S’s on the streets of Rome. Double what we coun­ted in London!

Thursday, 22^nd April, 2004

Arrive at Roma Ter­mini at 11.30am. Quick 9 euro taxi ride from the ter­minal to the Mecure Hotel. The Col­loseo looms in view only 150m away.

After check­ing in, we amble off to visit the Col­loseo. Sadly, up until one of the Pope’s decided to ded­ic­ate the whole Flavian Sta­dium (it’s real name) to St. Peter, the loc­als had decided to use 50% of the place as a source of cheap marble. With the Papal/Church bless­ing, noone touched a brick — and it still stands for us to gave at in awe. In fact, much of the Roman part of Rome is now built over, and built with as the mater­i­als were recycled. On the walk to the Col­loseo, we see an excav­a­tion show­ing where the Gla­di­at­ors trained. His­tory is everywhere.

40,000 slaves died in the 8 years it took to build the Colloseo/Stadium. Once opened in 80AD, 50,000 Romans could sit/stand and watch Gla­di­at­ors fight to the death.

Nearby there is the Roman Forum and the Pal­at­ine. We walk through the Pal­at­ine and get great views of Rome. Partly remodeled in the 16^th Cen­tury, the gar­dens offer res­pite in the 23 degree weather Rome is experiencing.

Avril and Liam catch up with some friends from the Korat world in the even­ing. Nick does work.

Thursday, 29^th April, 2004

We arrive home in Sydney at 8.30am. The QF128 in VH-OJF was inter­est­ing as the seats were the old style Busi­ness Class — so little sleep was had by all. There­fore, we are jet­lagged out of our tiny gourds

Wed­nes­day, 28^th April, 2004

Avril gets the morn­ing off to go shop­ping for stuff on the main island. We are stay­ing on Kowloon at the Sheraton (on Star­wood points). Avril hops onto the AU40cent ferry to the main island to sample the wares and markets.

Quick showers, late check­out and we’re back at the Hong Kong air­port. The Hong Kong x-ray guys are really fas­cist (remem­ber: two coun­tries, one sys­tem!) and pull us up on three items: a pair of tweez­ers, a piece WW2 gun­shell souvenir and a Sunglasses repair kit that con­tains a very, very small screw driver. No other x-rays have been so dra­conian as the Hong Kong guys.

Our bag count has gone up dra­mat­ic­ally. Less said on this topic the better.

Tues­day, 27^th April, 2004

Arrive at the Hotel after a 0 taxi fare. That’s 0 Hong Kong, so there is no need to panic.

Avril and I hit the shops. First task is to pur­chase a new piece of bag­gage as one of our bags split between Lon­don and Hong Kong. Shop­ping in Hong Kong is just like Singa­pore. At least I feel at home, hav­ing vis­ited Singa­pore on many occa­sions dur­ing the past 4 years or so.

On the streets, obvi­ously not loc­als, we are asked every 20 metres if we want a suit/shirts/watch/fake watch. Strongest street-hassle I’ve seen the whole trip.

Monday, 26^th April, 2004

Brit­ish Air­ways First Class. 9 seats on this 747, of which 5 are occu­pied. Each of the 5 occu­pants change out of their day clothes into the funny First Class prisoner’s out­fit prior to depar­ture. After take off, the crew dili­gently hook up the vel­veteen rope that sep­ar­ates us Busi­ness Class out­casts from passing acci­dently into the realms of First Class para­dise. This rope hinders the poor crew more than pas­sen­gers as they pass through the cabin.

The announce­ment tells us to shut off our “games and word pro­cessors”. Time to update the script, BA!

Sunday, 16^th May, 2004

Last day in Tokyo. Sad.

Check out of hotel, and leave my bags in stor­age at the Yaesu South side of the Tokyo sta­tion. I wrote that down because the sta­tion is that large.

Head off to Shin­juku to find the Park Hyatt Tokyo. This hotel is cent­ral to “Lost in Trans­la­tion” Go to the 41^st floor, take pho­tos. Being gaijin (european) in Japan means people think you belong in the hotel! Cool.

Refind the Yodo­bashi store near the Shin­juku sta­tion (use the Shin­juku Express Bus Ter­minal exit) and work hard on not spend­ing more money.

Return to the Tokyo sta­tion, and find a Star­bucks in the largest under­ground mall I have ever seen — Yaesu — cool.

Grab bags, and using the Y1280 ticket I pur­chased earlier using the auto­matic machines, grab the 12 stop “rapid” train to Nar­ita ter­minal 2. Not the Nar­ita Express (NEX) as this costs way more, and not the Limosine bus: also way expens­ive. On this train to the air­port, I am the only gaijin. 1hr40mins (not too bad) — this is to remem­ber as an inex­pens­ive way to get to the air­port next time.

Fill in the spe­cial form to con­vert the last of the yen I have into Australia.

Qantas night flight, good sleep, and home.

I have the meas­ure of Tokyo now; and this is one of the most enthralling cities/countries I have vis­ited. Def­in­itely on the fam­ily visit list.

Sat­urday, 15^th May, 2004

Up early, sub­way to Ginza: the depart­ment store centre of Tokyo. I am a little early (shops open at 10am) — but find some­where to eat and run across the Apple Store Ginza. Call into see what is going on here.

Find my way to the Tokyo rail­way sta­tion and attempt not to get lost. Not easy. To Shibuya exit by the fam­ous Haichiko Spe­cial Exit (West) for the full view;on to eat at Star­bucks (Lost in Trans­la­tion moment), then off to Aki­habara to start some shop­ping for the family.

Head­ing back to the hotel, I decide to take the Shinkansen (Bul­let Train) to Kyoto in a rush of blood to the brain. It’s a little expens­ive, and some­times dif­fi­cult to decipher where and when to go — but some friendly loc­als assist and I am on my way. Past Mount Fuji, 2 hours later in I am in Kyoto.

The Shinkansen makes inter-city travel as quick and easy as intra-city travel in Tokyo.

Sadly, I’ve left a little late, so the old/historic sights in Kyoto are closed — but at least I can quickly shop for some fam­ily items, get a feel for the place. Jump back on the next Shinkansen (Express) to Tokyo.

I am back in my hotel by 9.30pm.

Fri­day, 14^th May, 2004

Con­fer­ence over, its mid­day and time to relax. Sort of.

My equivilent in Japan and his team take us to Aki­habara and Shin­juku to exper­i­ence retail in IT, Japan style.

In Shin­juku, I spend some cash at the Yodo­bashi Cam­era store. This is 8 floors chock­ers full of elec­tron­ics. I want one of everything!

Everything in Japan has a “little tune”: lifts, rail­way sta­tions (with their own indi­vidual sig­na­ture tune) — at Yodo­bashi, they’ve taken the Civil war clas­sic “John Brown’s Body” and made it their tune. More Japan­ese strangeness.

Leav­ing the Adobe people at around 5pm, I start my two day per­sonal Japan­ese adventure.

The train at 6pm to Rop­pongi via Ebisu is packed: Tokyo packed. It’s a strange feel­ing being very very warm from the neck down from the body heat, and cold in the head with the air­con­di­tion­ing blast­ing down. Its like being in bed, so sleepy.

I have a hand drawn “mud map” to my next hotel in Rop­pongi, The Man­sions. Thanks to some pre-work read­ing (thanks Kevin San from the Honda Car Club) I find the hotel eas­ily, and at least have a bed for the night. Now to explore Roppongi.

Rop­pongi has a new com­plex known as “Rop­pongi Hills” — the most up-to-date and upmar­ket shopping/restaurant/office exper­i­ence. Acci­dently find the Rop­pongi MINI store and call in quickly.

Wander the streets to find the Hard Rock Cafe, Tokyo. Eat in “The Beatles” sec­tion, look­ing at pic­ture around Abbey Road. I was there just a few weeks ago. Strange small world, this.

I am find­ing that in Japan, if you find a Mac­don­alds, there will be a Star­bucks nearby — some­times exactly opposite.

Rop­pongi at night gets a little sleazy: I think this is shown in “Lost in Translation”

Bed, sleep, ready for the next day

Monday, 10^th May, 2004

After pay­ing for other’s train tick­ets last night, the cash is a little low. Thanks to “Lonely Planet”, read that Post Offices in Japan are con­nec­ted to Maestro/Plus net­works — and there is a Post Office about 2 minutes from where our meet­ing is being held. Cash up.

The Drug Store/Chemist/Pharmacy is an inter­est­ing place. What I think is deodor­ant could be hair removal cream; I am not sure. Best not risk it.

Night off, so some of us head to Rop­pongi via Shibuya. The train is packed, and it’s more humid in Tokyo than I expect.

Shibuya is pretty at night. Many lights, very very large TV screens, music and young people. Cer­tainly all us 30+ year olds feel, well, old and out of place. Pass on the “meat dog” — whatever that is.

Sunday, 09^th May, 2004

So begins the adven­ture to Tokyo, Japan. The flight is 9+ hours, Sydney to Nar­ita. Along with other people from the Adobe Sydney office, we are attend­ing a regional con­fer­ence. For most of us it the first time in Japan.

After see­ing “Lost in Trans­la­tion” at the begin­ning of these world travels, this is an inter­est­ing closure.

On D-Day in WW2, the engin­eers were first on the beach to clear the mines and other obstacles. We’ve sent in our local engin­eer to recce the ground a day early: so its a mad scramble to get the right adaptors for the stay in Japan. Thanks, Mark.

Arrive at 7.10pm, and its rain­ing. Our plane takes 20 minutes to find Gate 84 at Ter­minal 2. Nar­ita is sure big!

It’s a live “lead­er­ship course” as we nav­ig­ate our way from the plane to the train (with con­nec­tion at Nip­pori) to Shin­agawa via the JR Yama­n­ote line. Off the train, and then walk through the rain in a very “Blade Run­ner” exper­i­ence to the hotel. Hotel at 10.20pm, and we’ve got a bed for the night.

The first thing I notice is that Tokyo is big, the trains are safe and there are Vend­ing machines every­where. Jump­ing at the chance to try one out, I grab a “Boss Cof­fee” from Sun­tory (Lost in Trans­la­tion: “Sun­tory Time”) — its the best “Iced Cof­fee” I’ve tasted out­side South Australia.

TV is inter­est­ing. Chan­nel 6 in the hotel like a 24 hour uni­ver­sity where you can learn stat­ist­ics and pro­duc­tion schedul­ing in an Open University-like course.

The DSL/Ethernet thing isn’t work­ing for my laptop, and the Triband GSM phone doesn’t work so essen­tially I feel cut off in one of the most wired coun­tries in the world. Plus the lan­guage bar­rier, and its like being a fish out of water. That will pass.

The *best* resource I’ve read hap­pens to be the InDes­ign 2.0 (and CS) manu­als on trapping.

The whole cent­ral idea of trap­ping is that it cor­rects for phys­ical errors (such as mis­reg­is­tra­tion of plates) inherit in the print­ing pro­cess. This is either the Print­ing press itself, or the inks and sub­strates that are being used. You are adding or sub­tract­ing ink
(read: spread­ing or chok­ing) of ele­ments on the imaged page to ensure there are no hor­rible white gaps (ie: the sub­strate show­ing through)

With Computer-to-Plate, Web presses — print­ers are not trap­ping 4 col­our doc­u­ments at all.

5– and 6-colours, where you are using one or two spot col­our inks, trap­ping is imper­at­ive. This is espe­cially the case as the spe­cial inks or foils are being used. These inks have dif­fer­ent “cov­er­age” characteristics.

Digital presses (or just big old pho­to­copi­ers such as Docu­color devices) don’t really need trap­ping, but I’ve seen instances where it would have helped…

How do you determ­ine what col­our to choke/spread into another, auto­mat­ic­ally? Math­em­at­ic­ally, as there is a soft­ware pro­cess that is apply­ing the trap. It is over­com­pens­at­ing the size of an ele­ment to make it bigger.

There is where the Neut­ral Ink dens­ity is key. It meas­ures the rel­at­ive ink “cov­er­age” char­ac­ter­ist­ics of a par­tic­u­lar col­our rel­at­ive to another. So, if a light col­our (with a smal­ler ink dens­ity) isn’t going to “run” enough on the sub­strate into a darker ele­ment (with a high neut­ral ink dens­ity) on the page right next to it — you have to
“spread” the light into the dark col­our. If all you remem­ber is
“spread light into dark” you’re on your way there.

On the press, the idea is that the traps are “can­celled out” and effect will be the ele­ments will look great — no hor­rible white gaps, and hope­fully not too over­prin­ted. (with a hor­rible muddy col­our as a
result)

In Post­script, when print­ing with On Host trap­ping out of InDes­ign, extra ele­ments are drawn that “over­print” this light col­our into the dark col­our (if the ele­ment knock­sout, the objects are abut­ting and there­fore not trap­ping). This “over­print­ing” is why some people con­fuse trap­ping with over­print­ing. Over­print­ing is just the mech­an­ism used to apply a trap based on the inks used.

How big should the traps (trap­width) be? This all depends on the press, inks and sub­strates. That’s why (I think) the print­ers should be doing trapping.

There are a whole bunch of com­plex­it­ies that I haven’t dis­cussed here: slid­ing traps (think gradi­ents), trap­ping text, trap­ping images — but I’ll leave that as home­work for the reader.

For those prepress oper­at­ors who are from the good ole’ film days, they usu­ally like to hand cre­ate the traps on cer­tain ele­ments — and not rely on InRIP trap­ping or OnHost trapping.

For those who don’t under­stand trap­ping, and rely on Brand-Q’s fea­tures
– “real” prepress oper­at­ors snig­ger behind their backs. I know — I’ve worked with some of them!

The more you use InDes­ign, and espe­cially CS; then com­pare it to the high end sys­tems that many organ­isa­tions think as “pro­fes­sional pro­duc­tion engines” that cost more than US$20–30,000 a few years ago: the more you real­ise what an excel­lent prepress tool the InDes­ign engin­eer­ing team have developed. At a frac­tion of the price.

Hope­fully this is cor­rect (there might be some little errors!) and helps.