• The origins of abc – "We will begin where civilisation began, meander through the Middle Ages, race through the Renaissance, and in doing so discover where our alphabet originated, how and why it evolved, and why, for example, an A looks, well, like an A."
• Icelander’s Campaign Is a Joke, Until He’s Elected – This is brilliant. "A polar bear display for the zoo. Free towels at public swimming pools. A “drug-free Parliament by 2020.” Iceland’s Best Party, founded in December by a comedian, Jon Gnarr, to satirize his country’s political system, ran a campaign that was one big joke. Or was it?"

For the past few weeks I have spent almost as much time in Switzerland as I have at home. Unfortunately with business trips you can never guarantee that you see anything more of the place than the airport, and office and a hotel¹.

Fortunately I did finish “early” a couple of days though and the weather did manage to cooperate.

My first time in the city I arrived at the office in a taxi and walked five minutes to the hotel. Dinner wasn’t far away either. I had no impression of the orientation or size of the place. Well known for being next to a lake, I couldn’t have told you which direction to find it.

It turns out that it’s a very pretty, small city. When I did figure out the lay of the land I realised that nothing was very far away even on foot.

On the last day I went to Zeughauskeller for dinner.

Perhaps not the healthiest of options but, I am told, traditionally Swiss. (The yellow stuff on the right is called Rösti, basically a potato pancake.) A pretty good way to round out my three weeks in the city.

1. Since this was a business trip I didn’t have my regular camera with me and I had to shoot with my iPhone 4. It is surprisingly good for a phone but a long way from even my old “proper” camera in terms of image quality. [↩]

If you’re seeing any pictures missing from ZX81.org.uk at the moment this is because of a glitch in the way that I synchronise my pictures from my computer to Flickr. In short a large number of images were removed and I’m having to go back, find out which pictures I’d used and update all the relevant blogs. Please let me know if you find one that I missed.

For this weeks PhotoFriday, “Best Friend,” most people seem to have gone with pictures of their slobbering dog or grinning, cutesy couples.

That’s not my style.

I found these ducks in a hotel in Zurich, the yellow one in the bathroom, the chocolate one on the bed. I thought it would be nice to introduce them. They got on famously until one came to an unfortunate, albeit tasty, end.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Crooked.” I’m entry number 187.

This weeks PhotoFriday, “Crooked,” is another one where I thought someone else must have got there before me (especially since I’m two days behind the “Friday” schedule). But, as far as I can tell, no one else has gone for “The Crookedest Street in the World.” Also known as Lombard Street in San Francisco.

(My second choice would have been potentially libellous images of banks or stock exchanges. It maybe just as well I didn’t need to go down that route.)

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “Sky-High.” I’m entry number 229.

• Urbanized – After Helvetica and Objectified, Gary Hustwit's next documentary is about the design of cities. "Urbanized looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design, featuring some of the world's foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers." Can't wait.
• 8-Bit Cities – This is awesome: maps of cities in the style of 1980's video games.
• iPhone 4 – Case Program – I've not had any reception problems with mine but I'm not one to pass up free stuff…