Category: Me

Urban Crows Is On Tour

The Self-Isolation-Round-The-World-In-14-Days Tour

I flew in from Santiago a week ago with a plane load of worried Canadians heading home from their business trips, or cancelled cruises or their we-had-a-bit-too-much-adventure holidays.

The road in Chile goes on and on and on and on

The handy leaflet I was given at Toronto airport that passes for Canadian government COVID-19 screening tells me that I have to self isolate for 14 days, so now I’m effectively stuck in the house until March 30th.

Well, screw that. I’m an experienced world traveller with the constitution of an ox on steroids, and I’m simply not prepared to sit around, thumb up my bum, while the wonders of the world pass me by. So, the Urbancrows blog has embarked on an all expenses paid (funding source to be determined) virtual world tour to take in some of the sights I’ve always wanted to see. Madagascar, Mongolia, Chad – I’ve crossed them all off my bucket list already.

Regular readers will be pleased to hear (I hope) that I’ve been keeping an illustrated travel diary to while away the time spent on my virtual plane, sipping virtual bubbly in my virtual fully-reclinable First Class seat. I’ll be updating the diary everyday, so let’s dive in and see where I’ve been…

Day 9: The Lord Of The Rings

Today I visited the set of the Lord of The Rings in New Zealand -I read the book over and over as a kid & it’s one of my favourite films. I went dressed as Bilbo & they let me climb Sauron’s tower, which was only 12 ft high and wobbled alarmingly; something of a let down! A pathetic looking rubber “Smaug” flew over on the end of fishing line & grilled one of the extras but that’s why they call them extras I guess! Gandalf was smoking his wand (wtf?) & a bit out of it. His tobacco smelled funny.

Not as scary as it looks.
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Things Geologists Do. # 4.

Useless Undergraduate Studies.

If you’re reading the urbancrows blog, there’s an above average chance that you might be a trained geologist, you poor soul. Which means you spent 3 or 4 years slaving away as an undergraduate at University learning shit about rocks; sometimes a bit too much for your own good.

Have I ever told you about the useless shit I learned at college?

And wasn’t University fun? Field school. Beer. Labs. Beer. Lectures. Exams. Less beer. Failed courses. Coffee. Retakes. Below average degree. Career re-evaluation. Ah..the best days of our lives.

Out you popped, newly baked and pink cheeked from whatever cradle of higher learning you attended; a keen, young earth scientist, stuffed full of sciency knowledge. Head held high, you felt like you really understood the inner workings of our fragile blue rock. Those were the days.

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The Beethoven vs Chopin Adagio Smack Down Post

When it comes to piano concertos I’m a bit of a traditionalist. I prefer the early 19th and late 18th century pieces to their 20th century descendants. I suspect it’s because of the lyricism of the great European composers of that era, and – to be blunt- the whistle-along tunes they composed. If you ask me, a lot of 20th Century pieces involve too much noodling; great if you’re a musical theorist who understands what’s going on but not always so great to listen to for lay people like me. But hey, that’s just my opinion and what do I know?

Beethoven. Cheer up. You’re a genius.

There are 2 stand out concertos that I keep going back to. Both are popular and well known which is a slight departure in terms of the music I’ve been writing about on this blog.

Firstly, Beethoven’s wonderful Piano Concerto No 5, known as the Emperor concerto; a name given to it by the English publisher of the piece. And then there’s the boringly named Piano Concerto No. 1 by Chopin.

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It’s All Gravy

A couple of years back, I was walking with a friend through the Christmas market on the southern end of Hungerford Bridge in London. It’s an interesting, brutalist spot for a market, trapped between the muddy river, a massive bridge and the imposing late 1960s concrete arts bunker known as the Southbank Centre.

The Southbank centre. A kinder, artsier sort of brutal.

(I only found out recently that the Southbank centre was actually the vanguard of what was supposed to be a ground-breaking architectural redesign of London in the 1950s and 60s. The plan called for large parts of central London to be razed, including Soho and Whitehall, to be redeveloped with huge concrete office and residential blocks. Covent Garden was also slated to be flattened but the local residents organised and defeated the plan. Thank fuck it never happened.)

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I’m Sure About Sor

For Sure.

I’ve made no secret here at urbancrows about my love of classical music, particularly the canon of music that’s been composed for the guitar. In a previous piece I salivated about the glorious Turkish flavours baked into “Koyunbaba”, a suite in 3 movements written by Carlo Domeniconi, an Italian composer who lived in Istanbul for years. I’ve also blathered about Bach’s incredible violin piece, the Chaconne, and droned on ad nauseam about Tallis‘s contribution to the development of English votive music.

Are those drums, Fernando?

Well, today it’s the turn of the brilliant guitarist Fernando Sor, a Spanish composer and string-plucker who was born in Barcelona on Valentines Day, 1778. He lived to the not-really-so-ripe age of 61, and died a nasty, slow, painful death from tongue and throat cancer. I can only imagine what that was like in 1839.

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Underground Drilling

Things Geologists Do. Part Something.

Mine geologists –whatever their species, open pit or underground- will eventually end up supervising drill machines.

Open pit mine geologists rely heavily on sampling the cuttings produced by production blast hole rigs. The assay results help to map the average grade of the ore before it’s mined and sent to the metallurgical plant. They may also have core drills working in and around the pit testing for deeper, unexplored parts of the ore body.

An underground core drill. Definitely not ca. 1986.
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I Hate Christmas Markets

With Christmas just around the corner, towns and cities around the UK -and Canada too for that matter- begin to sprout outdoor Christmas markets like mushrooms on a cowpat. They pop up anywhere there’s space; row upon row of bland little wooden huts looking like the bastard offspring of a beach hut that’s had a one-night stand with a camp site toilet. I saw at least 6 different-but-exactly-the-same markets in the UK last week, scattered morosely around London, York and Harrogate. My wife and I are divided on the attractions of the seasonal markets. She loves them; me, less so..

Little wooden festive boxes in York.
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Geologists Gone Bad

Sex, lies and phone calls.

Geologists aren’t born deviant. We usually start out as normal people. But prolonged isolation – weeks and weeks in the field without a break- can do strange things to otherwise normal people.

I was normal before I became a field geologist

I used to work 6 weeks on, 2 weeks off. I did it for a couple of years. My longest shift stretched to 7 weeks which is a long time when you live somewhere nice, with a fiancée you miss. Three weeks in, with 3 more long weeks to go, it’s hard not to let the mind wander off to contemplate the finer things in life. A fine cup of coffee and a newspaper perhaps. A good British comedy on TV. Sex. A juicy steak paired with a robust glass of red. Sex. Did I mention sex? (Yes. get on with it. Ed.)

Most of us bury these things away in the back of our heads. It gives us something to look forward to when we get back to civilization; that special feeling when you can finally sit down in your favourite bar, with the paper and a glass of the local brew, or maybe with friends at a dinner party.

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My Favourite Carpet

Buying Rugs In Pakistan

The city of Quetta is a dump. It’s the provincial capital of Baluchistan, the western most province of Pakistan. It sticks out like a nasty looking spike, with Iran to the south and Afghanistan to the north. I was there in the late 1990s waiting for a government permit to head off road and up to the border region with Afghanistan to prospect for copper (see my earlier blog posts here and here) I waited about 3 weeks for the permit, which was finally granted after I hosted 15 or so officials from the ministry for lunch at a Chinese restaurant.

The Afghan border. I was waiting for a permit to go here.
Sometimes I question the wisdom of my choices.

Fast forward to 2019 and now it’s not just a dump, it’s a bloody dangerous dump, rife with Islamic sectarian extremism. The Shia Hazara tribes have been targeted by Sunni militants leading to bombings, kidnappings and other nefarious goings on. To compound its problems, the region is also prone to major earthquakes. The last big one in 1935 killed an estimated 40,000 residents.

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September Stock Picking Update

More from the world’s greatest stock picking club!

Greeting Stockpickers,

It’s time for another look at how Hys and Lows, the world’s greatest mining stock picking club, is faring as we drift soggily into Fall. The following is an edited version of my monthly note to the club members, individual’s names redacted.

The Rules

First, the usual reminder of how our much envied club works. We meet in late January to quaff flagons of fine wine, mourn the state of the industry, and pick stocks. It’s not a club, just a casual once-a-year gathering of 25 or so knuckle-dragging hairy-palmed mining people at an overpriced steak restaurant in downtown Vancouver.

So waddya think about the gold price? Mmm. Fruity.

Everyone chooses 1 mining stock. It can’t be a company you work for, and it can’t be halted or pre-IPO. At the dinner, whoever chose the stock that went up the most over the year is declared the winner and they eat and drink for free. Everyone else has to bring a $100 bottle of wine and the loser gets to wear the toilet-seat-of-shame.

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