As a native of Scotland I don't like to look farther than the Aberdeen Angus brand, but unfortunately the little black, grass fed cattle of the North East of Scotland are not easy to find these days because of the lingering effects of the BSE crisis in the UK.

In these days of lean bred meat it's also difficult to find something worth cooking and I refuse to go for US hormone stuffed imports.

Luckily, the Swiss Simmental breed is just knocking on the door.

You know, I really don't have time for all this posing.....

This old friend is still there, Christmas or no Christmas. Hope everyone is having a good festive season, although dear Chuckeroon has had some bad luck I'm afraid. You can cheer him up here.

The Hague has a lot of new building going on. I commented on it in an old post, on the old blog. Here's some more.

Apart from crumbling architecture, it is also possible in Italy to photograph entire conversations

Completely by accident I've been firing the G11's flash in the wash hand basin. Quite interesting lighting results.

throw in a bit of knob twiddling....

Actually the first one had some knob twiddling as well....

The completion of the building work at the Salute means for the first time in a few years it is possible to walk around this iconic little spit of land. This gave me the opportunity to have a look at the sculpture on top of the Dogana Tower at close hand.

The statue, sitting above a globe supported by two Atlases, is named Fortune, and is actually a weather vane. The vane is the rudder of a ship. Given Venice's important relationship with maritime trade, the allegories are just queuing up.

The new Francois Pinault centre is finished, and the Church has had its roof sorted, so there is no scaffolding any longer.

Clouds and skylines are a bit cliched, but I find them irresistible. They also illustrate though how difficult it is to get the perfect composition. Like here - all the elements are there but they are not quite where you want them. And you are powerless to re-arrange them!

All these photos from Venice have been taking with the Canon G11 which has replaced my Leica DLux 3 as an all purpose carry-around digital camera. In fact it's the only digital camera I brought with me. So far I'm very pleased - in operation and usability it suits me very nicely, which for me is the main thing in any camera. No matter how good the picture quality if I can't get along with it I won't get good results

How to stand out in a crowd. Can you spot him? Click for a bigger view. Probably the best chess player there has ever been.... maybe.. perhaps

Korchnoi, like Spassky, is from Leningrad. Born in 1931 he is only 6 years older and a playing contemporary of Spassky, but was seemingly often regarded by the Soviets as more "old-guard" and perhaps suffered as a result. A perennial contender for World Champion he never won it - probably the strongest player never to have done so.

He defected in the 70's and since 1978 has lived in Switzerland. He's the oldest active grandmaster. I think his longevity in the game (still winning tournaments - Montreal 2007) more than compensates for taking the crown which has so often been devalued by all sorts of political and manipulative shenanigans.

The old chess warrior, and a hero of mine from 1972 when I followed events from Reykjavik, and actually wanted Spassky to beat Fischer. This was taken a couple of months ago at a simultaneous exhibition in Zürich.

A large man, to my surprise, with a lot of presence.

Well, not quite. It looks as though the smoking ban in Zürich's bars, restaurants and cafes may come into effect in May 2010, but I'm not holding my breath. Well I am, most of the time actually.

On the way home yesterday I came across a small religious procession. Didn't know what it was about but the Internet came to the rescue and I discovered it was a smaller version of the massive Fiesta de Senor de los Milagros which is held every October in Lima, Peru (and elsewhere).

Lots of photo opportunities. A 'colourful' end to a grey day in Zurich.