After a week of explaining how to draw windows in section to first year students, last night’s fourth year crits and subsequent dinner with David Turnbull and Dave and Indy of BA002 were very refreshing. The dinner conversation breached issues such as the competition for the WTC site, how to make money as an architect without sinking into the mundane, Arup, networking technology, our capacity for dealing with a networked world, Rem Koolhaas’s rejected proposal for a new EU flag, and other such zeitgasty things.

This morning an old white-bearded man initiated small talk at the bus stop. The weather; frequency of busses. We were interrupted by a brief exchange in Greek that I had with a passing friend. He then exclaimed “helliniki synomilia” (Greek conversation). Although his accent suffered audibly from lack of use, his Greek was impeccable. He explained (in Greek) that his mother lived in the Pontic Greek town Kerasounta, now Giresun in Turkey. But he interestingly had none of the peculiarities of the Pontic Greek dialect. His interesting story was cut short by the arrival of the bus.