The two marks of being middle class have to be an overriding concern with house prices and strongly held opinions on the relative merits of supermarkets. I find myself distressed to write this post, therefore.

I've been a big fan of Out of this World since I got to Newcastle. The small, packed high organic shop that was here when I arrived re-opened last year as a bigger, more spacious place. Of course, it had plenty of terribly worthy food; food that you could eat with a clear conscience but without that much enjoyment. But it also had a lot of great stuff; the fruit and veg section was pretty good. The dried fruit and nut selection probably the best that I have seen. I was particularly fond of the dried mango slices.

Today, however, I've found that it is shutting down. I suspect that they over-expanded; as well as the new location here, they have opened a new store in York. Then, they've also been hit by the new Sainsburies which opened next door (ironically over the site of their old store). As well as having a bigger range, Sainsbury's is open for longer, including Sundays, and has free parking. It's an old story, and not a surprise; I was just waiting for the time. I can't help but be depressed, though, that the three rows of wierd things, of strange grains that you have never heard of, their bank of honeys from different parts of the UK, have been replaced by three rows of ready-meal uniformity.

Still, look on the bright side, combined with decline of Northern Rock (also based in Gosforth), perhaps it will mean a drop in local house prices.

Yes, people do actually read this. Daniel Schober today wrote to me to point out an error in my post about bio-ontologies. I did a life blog, on a computer resting on my stomach while not jumping up and down chairing the session. I reported Daniel's post as "11:51 Daniel Schober is not describing efforts to standardise..."

I've now fixed the "not" to "now". Oops.

I've been thinking about new mechanisms for teaching for a while; a post from Savas spurred me into thinking about it more; basically, I've come to the conclusion that lectures are boring for both the students and the lecturer. I was thinking to replace them with some funky form of website; rather like the ones that I do for practical classes, but with more content and less working through.

I asked my students about it. About half of them thought it was a good idea, half bad. The main concerns were whether it was going to be more work and more time sitting at a computer reading a website. Good points both. I think that the more work concern may be misguided, though, as it's based on the amount of stuff they learn in the practical classes; it's nowhere as much as they learn in a lecture although the knowledge is deeper. Others thought it was a good idea; most probably the ones bored of my rambling anecdotes.

I've decided that I am thinking too much though. This time of the year is stupidly busy; my mind tends to be constantly active. It's good in some ways, but bad in others. I'm not stressed about it, as I'm used to it, but my mind tends to flit backwards and forwards and I find it hard to relax; even when I am not thinking about work I think about other things.

I think this was responsible for the mini-nightmare I had last night; I'm not a heavy dreamer; I rarely remember them and when I do they are not the technicolour with stereo sound that other people report. Anyway, in this dream I had to travel to Edinburgh for some reason. So, I got the boat up (look, it's a dream, it's not meant to make sense). The trip up went fine, but on the way back it was a disaster and I lost my luggage; I woke up pretty suddenly and really stressed. Ah, the sad mundanity of my life.

Well, the flight over involved an unexpected stopover in JFK; the ticket said "Salt Lake City" to "Paris", with a single flight number. Randomly this single flight involved flying to JFK, getting off, and getting on a different plane. I'm not sure in quite what sense this can be considered to be a single flight then. Never been to JFK before; previously, I thought that LHR was the worst airport that I have been to. It's not.

The actual flight was fine; had a interesting discussion with a woman from Puerto Rica. I confess not to know that much about it and about it's relationship with the US. It's clear that the country has some difficult decisions ahead.

Sadly, we got stuck in traffic at JFK and were over an hour taking off, so now I have missed my flight and am stuck in Paris for another 2 hours before I head for LHR. Three bad airports in a row. For those of you who are counting, this means 5 flights for one journey.

It's 1 in the afternoon and I feel bad.

It's 5 in the morning, and I feel fine.

I guess it's odd to be talking about Northern Exposure when I am somewhere South of Paris, but this is where is was filmed and it's does get pretty cold up here in winter.

I've never been much in the way for tourism, so a trip up to Roslyn, the physical location for Cicely, Alaska seemed like a pretty daft idea, but sometimes you have to just go with these feelings. Cliff was kind enough to offer to drive me up there. The trip there was, well, flat then hilly. The dividing line between the desert and the trees is really quite sharp. It's maybe a mile from the first tree to the full out forest. Once you get to the forest, it really starts to look like Northern Exposure territory.

We got into Roslyn late; we'd stopped for a quick lunch which had taken ages, after they lost the ticket (the offered us a free starter, but Cliff just got his cash back instead). The sun was still up, but there wasn't much left. The town is tiny, but relatively compact — no urban sprawl here. There is a central road running through it, which is actually at right angles to what appears to be the main road on TV. In the fading sunlight, the place was beautiful; lots of wood construction everywhere, peaceful and with the intense smell of coniferous wood smoke everywhere.

The effects of Northern Exposure can be seen on the town, but only in a small way. Joel Fleischman's office is now the Cicely Alaska museum. Just over the road is the corner store and at the bottom, the Brick. The famous mural is, as it says, on the wall of Roslyn('s) Cafe, rather than the Brick which is the impression that you get. The Cafe, as far as I can tell, is not featured beyond the mural. KHBR radio is just over the other side of the main road; it's still there with Minnifield Communications network up on the door. We stopped for dinner (veggie burger and fries) in the Brick; inside it bears little resemblance to the TV version; it's much, much bigger than it appears, has a stage and long bar, and a big log stove in the corner. I guess that the interior shots are actually studio based, and not here at all.

The town itself is much as it appears to on TV. But there is more to it. It's mining heritage is lost on TV (which would have placed it in the wrong area). The museum they had there was wonderful. As well as the camel mural, there are several others, including celebrating Roslyn's past. And just outside KHBR radio is an "war" memorial to those who lost their lives in the mining industry. I like these small towns; I could have happily spent a couple of days there, hung over, drank beer, drove (or walked!) up some trails.

The experience of being a dumb fan-boy tourist was a little uncomfortable for me, and combined with the declining day light, I didn't quite get the pictures I wanted (forgot to take on of the doctors office), so I'll have to go back another time.

It was a strange way to spend a day, but it was a quintessential American experience. Spudnuts and coffee to start (you may view the spudnuts here, but please prepare yourself first — it's not pretty). At lunch, we got fast food, and I got to see Cliff complain (no one complains like an American), then we drove for hours for little readily apparent purpose, to a place where I took lots of photos of nothing apparent. Wonderful.

Yesterday I gave a talk at PNNL. It went fine, got a few laughs, had some interesting discussions about infrastructure for bioinformatics, and some new uses for ontologies.

PNNL is in Washington State, in Pasco. There are hills between here and the coast, so none of Seattle's rain gets here — basically, it's a desert. The cities have the classic urban sprawl; there is no city centre or down town area, just lots of roads with malls hanging off them. The roads are all about 16 lanes wide, with no cars on them. Space is cheap here; it took me 5 minutes to walk from the guest house, across the largely empty parking lot to the badging office. Unlike Livermore where I have been before, the security is relatively low key; no marine with a basooka strapped to his shoulder wishing you a nice day on the entrance here. They did give me a 30 page "visitor orientation" book. Page 1 says "look after the environment", page 2 says "don't drive too fast", page 3 says "no alcohol, cameras are restricted and wear your badge". From page 4 onwards, it's all about radiological safety including a section cryptically entitled "What about pregnant women".

I'm staying in the PNNL guesthouse, as they are not allowed to put you up anywhere else. They provide a complementary breakfast of microwavable muesli bars, and a 150ml can of apple juice (made from concentrate), which are replaced every monday. The sign telling me all this also says "enjoy your breakfast" which seems a tad optimistic.

The local delicacy here are "spudnuts" — I now said or written this word about 15 times and still find it funny. Basically these are doughnuts made of, well, potatoes. Despite being a desert, Washington state is also starting to make inroads into wines — you can see the vineyards from overhead as you come in.

Today, after a breakfast of spudnuts and coffee my host, the ever gracious Cliff Joslyn is taking me up at Roslyn — better known as Cicely, Alaska, home of Northern Exposure. I expect it's going to be pointless — there many be three buildings I recognise, or there may not. Hopefully, I'll get some reasonably views of the hills as well, rather than miles and miles of flat, brown and probably radioactive dirt.

NEWS FLASH

Actually, it was pretty cool.

Last night we went for a curry in San Diego. The waitress (sorry, our Server for the Evening) asked me whether I want my curry "mild, medium, spicy or very spicy". Well, okay, very spicy I said (had a bit of a cold, so it seemed the sensible thing). She looked dubious; "I wouldn't advise that", she said, "why not have the spicy just to be safe".

The curry was nice, if bland.

Today I've flown into Salt Lake city. From the air, it's astonishing, with the white plains contrasting with the deep blue of the water. Apart from that, it looks like an bit of an industrial dump to be honest.

Last night I came to an amazing discovery; the TV in the US can be great. Last night, I fall across UCSD TV. I watched a great lecture on the sociology of the stem cell debate which was most illumiating. I then stayed awake a bit too long listening to a programme on sleep deprivation and the body clock. University TV — a great idea. Perhaps Newcastle should start pod-casting — a daily lecture on some topic being researched or taught at the Unversity. Perhaps surprisingly, the straight lecture format works quite well on the box, and it's relatively cheap.

Walked around Mission Bay these morning. In the morning, there was a mist over the sky, the air was sweet with the smell of tropical trees and and heady with petrol fumes. It's a naturally beautiful area; I can't help thinking that it's natural beauty could have been enchanced if the city were not designed for the convienience of cars.

Wasn't sure what to eat; ended up getting Japanese — had edamame and veggie teriyaki; 10 dollars, large enough to feed a water buffalo who hadn't eaten for several days. Would have been nicer half the size and done better, but it was still good.

I'm flying out to San Diego today. I was sure that I was going to miss the connection from Cincinatti to San Diego after lots of delays with the flight. I managed to clear customs in about 5 minutes which is the fastest time ever, with around 20 minutes to go. But then I got stopped after a dog smelt apple on my bag, which I'd eaten on the plane, and lost another 5 minutes on another x-ray. Finally got to the gate, after a cross-terminal dash, risking life and limb rather than doing up my shoe laces. 3 minutes later the plane left. Fun actually. Haven't had to run across an airport for years.

Got loads of work done on the way, much of which has been hanging around for ages, including part 2 of a view of my Italy trip . I have to say that at least part of this is the lack of internet connection. Also, today I got up at 4am and the day is 32 hours long. Maybe that has something to do with it. I should travel more often.