Earlier today daringfireball pointed me to Byline by Phantom Fish, a Google Reader client-side application for the iPhone.

Since I recently abandoned Safari’s built-in RSS reader for Google, this is just the kind of application that I have been looking for. Unlike a lot of programs I’ve found on the AppStore, Byline seems to be very well put together. The author appears to have included a thoughtful set of features. Not everything, just those elements you use every day; either a good starting point for later versions or an Apple-like approach depending on your perspective.

• Wall-E: One giant beep for mankind – “Pixar’s films have always outstripped those of Dreamworks – maker of the Shrek series, among others – because they contain universal truths rather than a series of swiftly dated cultural in-jokes.”
• How English Is Evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand – Is evolution not the natural way forward? An alternate take would be: how do the French think that they can mandate changes in language?
• Big Oil’s Iraq deals are the greatest stick-up in history – “Iraq is being forced to sell 75% of its national patrimony to pay the bills for its own illegal invasion and occupation.”

• Tuscany, Italy – It’s been a long time coming — over a month since I got back — but the complete set of images and commentary from my trip to Tuscany is now online.
• Unintended consequences of the smoking ban – A year ago since the smoking ban arrived here in the UK…
• Bond trailer makes online debut – Really looking forward to this. The last Bond movie was great.

The Cinque Terre — a series of small, connected coastal villages — has been on my, admittedly rather long, list of places to visit for some time, but when I first flew out to Tuscany I didn’t quite know how achievable it would be. Sure, Google Maps said that it would be a two hour drive from the villa, but I wasn’t completely sure that I was using the right address and I have been late several times when relying on directions cribbed from the Internet.

Walled cities are a Tuscan specialty. I’d been to a few in the last couple of weeks and, on paper, Arezzo looked to be another gem in the making.

However shortly after arriving things did not look quite so promising. Although an old city, much of what you can see on first entering the city is dull, generic office buildings, including one company amusingly called “multiass.”

Inside the city walls things immediately get… confusing. I walk down a street. To my right is a church, ahead are a mess of signs pointing in every direction, each one presumably a place of interest. With no guide book on the city I had no real idea what any of them were and arbitrarily picked “right.”

After the disappointment of Pisa¹ I was looking forward to the highly regarded city of Lucca, which is only twenty five kilometres north-east up the SS12.

Like Pisa the parking situation was dire and it took several attempts to find somewhere to put the car. The comparisons to Pisa end here, however, as I immediately liked what I saw.

Immediately inside the walls are those very typical narrow, cobbled streets. There were no shortage of shops with extensive displays of meats and cheeses, bread and cakes. These all needed investigating. While I’m sure that most of these places see a good number of tourists passing through, they’re certainly not at the level of tea towels or cheap models of local sites.

• Review: Charming Wall-E Sweeps Up Trash, Hearts – Seems that being bought by Disney has not cramped Pixars style. Definitely one that I’ll see at the cinema.
• Labour fifth as Tories win Henley – When Labour get fewer votes than the BNP in a by-election there is a big problem…
• Legal, British P2P ‘by end of year’ – Is the music industry finally ready to embrace new distribution models?

Religion seems to be woven into the daily life of Tibetans in a way that seems alien to most Westerners, which made it a mine of possibilities for this weeks PhotoFriday theme.

In the end I settled on this image from Tashilumpo Monastery, one of my favourites from that trip.

Please also vote for my entry in last weeks challenge, “The Great Outdoors.” I’m entry 160.

I really wanted to like Pisa. When I last visited in 2004 I came away fond of the area around the leaning tower but unimpressed with pretty much everything else I saw of the city. It was grey and bland and unattractive. But I was hoping that I had been wrong. It had been overcast and rainy, and I had had to rush around the place. Perhaps I had just not done the place justice?

A few days ago when I drive to Poppi I saw signs for Rufina and Borgo San Lorenzo. Today I decided to head for the latter and stop off in the former.

First stop was the Vine and Wine Museum, which I found at the end of this long row of tall trees.

After the last few days of rain I was annoyed with myself to be so relieved to get out of the hot, bright sun. Inside there were tables littered with leaflets publicising local events, wine tasting tours and the museum itself. In the distance were murmuring voices but by the entrance, near the tills where you’d expect someone to be taking tourists money, there was no-one.