Best Of

Hmmm.

Not sure how terminally nerdy @Leon is being, or whether he wants obscure walk-on curios that his readers may not want to visit.

There's the "Birthplace of Silicon Valley" in SF, which is the garage where Hewlett-Packard were founded in the 1950s. This is like many of the bizarre things to be found in London eg the original Samaritans' telephone - Mansion House 9000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Garage

I actually do intend to go to Silicon Valley, just to see it. To get the vibe, I understand there is virtually nothing there to ACTUALLY see and do but that's fine. Also you've now given me a target, an obscure but fascinating location, so thanks!

See if you can find a way to go to the new Apple HQ, Norman Foster’s big donut and supposedly the world’s best office building.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Park

Bomp bomp bomp, and another one ... !

(That's 2 Deputy CC Leaders in a week.)

The deputy leader of Worcestershire County Council has resigned, three months into the role.

David Taylor, from the county's ruling Reform UK party, will remain a member of the cabinet, with Rob Wharton filling in as deputy leader while the group decides on a permanent replacement.

Taylor was elected as a county councillor in Redditch East for the first time in May.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23pz43m00yo

Not sure that a lot of these Reform councillors expected to be elected, thought they were just paper candidates.

Don’t know about this particular council, but most are poorly paid for the amount of work involved.

A local farmer reports that haylage yield is fine, but hay is down ~ 40%. Grass pasture is very poor for the time of year. Going to mean (yet more) increases in food prices going into winter & autumn.

You could draw a line across the country from around Chester to Newcastle, everything south of that has had some form of drought conditions impacting on crops this year. I'd be surprised if it didn't reflect on prices on the shelves

A few farms reporting early harvest up here due to dry conditions, crops ripening much earlier. yield may be down where crop growth has been stunted

It has largely been superb weather for at first haymaking and then for combining grain. It shouldn't require much if any additional cost of drying.

PB travel brain trust!

FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*

However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?

Hmmm. There's Mount St Helens. And various other disaster sites and (I expect) abandoned industrial landscapes.

There are also several Frank-Lloyd Wright houses en route - eg the Hanna-Honeycomb House is great and an archetype of his design (1936) in Stanford (involves hexagons), but currently closed for renovations where it is normally open for visitors.

The Tracy House at the other end was occupied from 1956 to 2012 by the couple who had it built for them, but afaik is still a private house. Amusingly it was a "Usonian Automatic" home, designed to control construction costs - for FLW ! It didn't.

Both are Usonian Houses (FLW word), which would let you educate your readers with more vocabulary. There are others.

Ta

PB is excellent for travel advice

PB travel brain trust!

FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*

However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?

you would need to do the obvious , Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz. Further up but a bit inland Yosemite , Lake Tahoe.

Trouble is I’ve done all those. Apart from Lake Tahoe

I’ve been to California a lot. I was hoping for something new and exciting north of Frisco but it sounds like there’s not that much

Steven Malkmus (Pavement) wrote the song 'Unfair' which I think is about his perception that North California (and Oregon?) is better than South California, but is not credited as such. In your place, I would be making this the thesis of my whole article. Though perhaps this might be a bit esoteric for the readership of Flint Flickers Fortnightly.

Up to the top of the Shasta Gulch
And to the bottom of the Tahoe Lake
Man-made deltas and concrete rivers
The south takes what the north delivers

PB travel brain trust!

FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*

However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?

Hmmm. There's Mount St Helens. And various other disaster sites and (I expect) abandoned industrial landscapes.

There are also several Frank-Lloyd Wright houses en route - eg the Hanna-Honeycomb House is great and an archetype of his design (1936) in Stanford (involves hexagons), but currently closed for renovations where it is normally open for visitors.

The Tracy House at the other end was occupied from 1956 to 2012 by the couple who had it built for them, but afaik is still a private house. Amusingly it was a "Usonian Automatic" home, designed to control construction costs - for FLW ! It didn't.

Both are Usonian Houses (FLW word), which would let you educate your readers with more vocabulary. There are others.

Ta

PB is excellent for travel advice

Here's R L Stevenson's travel advice.
https://robert-louis-stevenson.org/works/the-silverado-squatters-1884/

There's now a state park named after him.

Don't know what Calistoga is like today, but it was a great little hippy town forty years ago.

I remember thinking even back then, hiking through the woods to visit the Petrified Forest that if it ever caught fire, you'd be very lucky to get out.

PB travel brain trust!

FLINT FLICKERS FORTNIGHTLY has commissioned me to do a road trip from San Francisco to Seattle. *which is nice*

However I don’t know this coast at all. Or indeed inland of this coast. I’ve been to Seattle and environs - I’ve done Mount Saint Helens - but that’s it. Any ideas what I should do? Any must-sees?

Stay home. Watch a couple of videos of that exact road trip. Phone in article to the Gazette copy-takers. What next? Route 66? Land's End to John o' Groats?

But the joke's on me. I've been suckered into thinking the Gazette is like National Geographic when in fact 99.4 per cent of all travel journalism is bought and paid for by tourist boards and hotel chains.

“Hi Grok, I am planning a trip from City A to City B. Please can you describe what are the attractions in these cities and close to the route between them. Please reply in around 2,000 words and following the style guide of The Gazette”.

“Hi Grok, after completing the above, please can you detail and compare how much it might cost for a human to do the same trip. Work on the human costing $500/day in wages, plus his flights (from UK, biz class) hotels, car hire, food and drink etc. Please also write 500 words on how AI can very easily replace travel journalism, when it can quickly write an article that might cost in the five figures for a human to do.”

Happily that’s never going to happen. Because readers will insist - indeed are already insisting - that a human experiences these things so a human can say what it’s like for a human to do them

True story. This is already impacting travel pages - they’re commissioning MORE personal travel stories because it turns out these are in demand

Machines can churn out the facts and figures - and will do so. The bottom is falling out of the already tiny market for writers giving the boring info on flight delay compensation

But stories like “how I went to the Maldives and saw 300 sharks” are even more popular than ever

This is the way ahead. If your job involves some irreplaceable human element - and you are good at it - it is not only safe you could possibly flourish and make more money than ever. If your job is not irreplaceably human or you’re not especially skilled, eek