Rode through the Jura massif yesterday and came across Arbois, a little town in the Burgundy Franche-Comté region. Stumbled across a little garden and there was a memorial to Louis Pasteur who moved to the region as a child and undertook some of his most important work to make both cheese and wine taste a lot nicer… as much as I love both wine and cheese I guess for me it was the discovery of the rabies vaccine that puts him in a landmark position.
Riding south from Ravaniemi on the E75, I spotted a small side turning leading east marked Tervola and slipped quickly of the rough north south route, into the unknown. The brilliant sunshine glimmered of the the new bridge over the Kemi, as I stopped in the shade of the Kirk. Finland’s wartime past is not widely publicised but knowing the Russian pacts and advance from the east and the Finnish resistance and the earlier Lapland War, the number of German and Finnish war graves with similar dates reinforces the strategic importance of this river crossing in 1944.
If you get a chance go to Bletchley Park. Its a haunting place that was the location of the UK Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), and perhaps most famously the site that allowed Dilly Knox and the team including Alan Turing to build the Bombes which helped crack the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. I had to double check my facts after my first visit as I just could not believe that in the UK homosexuality remained a criminal offence until 1967. Turing committed suicide on June 7th 1954 after begin persecuted for being gay. It is little recompense that the UK government officially apologised to him for the “the appalling way he was treated”, but on the 24th December 2013 Turing was pardoned posthumously by the Queen – its not the finest moment for our democratic system and tolerant culture – live and let live.
Stumbled across some excellent street art last weekend in Little Blackall Street in Shoreditch,London EC2. Turns out this little alley supports displays from RUN, C215, 616, Swoon and Alice Pasquini as well as Pichi and Avo, some of the original work is covered under hoardings but even those have been enlivened. Did a bit of digging and found some “whose watching the watchers” art on display and when I checked on street view I found this – the irony is not lost on me…
Going to have to leave the east shortly – these 17 days have raced by with a series of multi lingual exchanges and gesticulations bound by the common thread of an old man riding an old motorcycle – lasting memories will be the torrential rain and the stunning vistas for wherever you look in eastern Europe the people are friendly and welcome you into their homes – the number of times I have been offered a drink when asking for directions – like the two go hand in hand…