View from a Chennai Hotel

Just a quick update. A couple of photos from the roof of the hotel. Chennai in all its glory.

Madame Vin had a successful first day at work and I got plenty done on "Cell", the second book in the 'Juvie' trilogy.

Going out for curry tonight.

Welcome to Chennai

I'm installed in my hotel, overlooking Mount Road in central Chennai. It's hot, busy, cacophonous and bizarre. Wealth and real poverty side by side, a modern thriving metropolis but one rooted in ancient cultures, its a mishmash of ideas, thoughts and voices. It's going to be an interesting year.

So far I haven't gone far. A quick trip to a shopping centre through the noisome streets and to the gym (where I made a friend of the trainer and he tried to kill through exercise - which I need to do everyday).

Tomorrow Madame Vin is going on her first visit to the office and I'll start my writing regime.

In the mean time, some links:

• A biomechanical world in this stunning video
• Supernatural is getting the Anime treatment.
• "Migrating Floating Gardens" by Rael San Fratello Architects.
• A 'Super Sad True Love Story' from Gary Shteyngart "we live in such a fast-paced society that the moment you want to write about something, that instant is gone. The only way to capture the present is to write about the future."
• The age of the book is coming to an end. 
• And now that I'm India for a year, Kate Griffin has made me a little home sick for Edinburgh.

I'll try to put up some photos tomorrow.