Not much time for a proper post today but I shall leave you with this incidental musing that I had whilst waiting for my connecting flight from Frankfurt. Airports...odd how they tend to reflect the characteristics of the nation they reside in isn't it? Or perhaps it isn't...perhaps it's unavoidable non? However, when I say "reflect the characteristics", I don't mean in the way that the countries and architects probably intended...you know, the boring stuff like bold, noble heritage and all that bollocks...no, I mean the unintentional yet, as I said, unavoidable characteristics of a nation...perhaps I should explain by way of example:

Heathrow/England; Past it's prime, a crumbling reminder of a once proud and noble institution that is now slowly fading into obscurity and disrepair.

Frankfurt/Germany; Cold and forbidding, a harsh structure, all hard angles and stark lines, reflecting a calculating and precise approach to everything at the expense of warmth and good humour.

Taipei/Taiwan; A peculiar mix of nicely constructed new buildings and the old fashioned, barely adequate remnants of a poor country, all of which perfectly conveys the image of a nation using it's newfound wealth to try and bulldoze over a history of poverty.

See what I mean...funny how such a prosaic piece of construction can communicate such things...but then this *may* all just be the product of a tired mind after 18 hours of travelling ;)