Palestine has been much on my mind over the past few months, and it is tempting to try and see a parallel between the situation there today and the situation in Ireland a century ago. Will we ever see Shimon Peres or one of his successors bowing his head in respectful memory of Palestinian fighters killed during the intifadas? yet that is equivalent to what the Queen did this week in Dublin.

I have a small piece of family history tied up in this. My Irish grandfather was shot dead by the Black and Tans, possibly the greatest scoundrels ever to wear a British uniform. He was completely innocent, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It would have been tempting for my grandmother, widowed with a small baby (my mother) to seek some consolation in her grief by honouring her late husband as a martyr to the cause, and pledging never to forget. Fortunately for my mother, she didn’t – she got on with her life, remarried, had another five children, and brought all six up to stay well clear of the paramilitaries and all their hangers-on. She didn’t live to see one of her grandchildren have a successful career in the Royal Ulster Constabulary – a highly dangerous career choice for a Catholic – but I suspect she would have understood.

I found Palestine full of memorials to ‘martyrs’ for the cause – everywhere from market squares to living rooms. I don’t consider my grandfather a martyr, a hero in the struggle for Irish independence. He was just an ordinary guy on his way to do another day’s work blending tea for the people of Sligo. However, I do consider my grandmother, in her own small way, a heroine in the struggle for peace. Peace in Ireland came when the heroes and heroines for peace finally overcame those seeking martyrdom and victory through the armed struggle. I trust and pray it will not be another century before the same victory happens in the Middle East. May what has happened in Ireland be a small beacon of hope for the world.

The siren is now sounding across the city to announce the start of shabat – the sabbath day, when Jewish Jerusalem comes to a halt and Muslim Jerusalem continues regardless. On our way back to the hotel we were amazed to see a market had sprung up along the streets round the Damascus Gate. Mohammed explained that municipal inspectors don’t work on Friday afternoons, so traders take to the streets. The overflowing fruit and veg stalls were full of bargains – Israeli wholesalers wouldn’t be able to shift stocks until Monday, so the canny Palestinians scooped up the surplus and sold it in these impromptu markets.

We had spent the day weaving in and out of the various quarters of the Old City. It’s staggering to see so much history heaped up (literally) within a square kilometre or so, with each new era building on top of the last. I also can’t think of another city that has ended uo with so many foreign countries owning slices of real estate within its city walls. The most depressing sight was the recent Israeli settlers who have managed to stake a claim to property within the Muslim quarter and flaunt their presence with large Israeli flags and ugly security measures.

The Old City is a complete warren of ancient streets and buildings. Mohammed grew up within its walls and was a faultless guide to the area and a fount of knowledge on its history, both ancient and modern. As we did the rounds of the sights from the Via Dolorosa to the Wailing Wall, we learned a lot about the troubles of the city past and present. Having been brought upon Bible stories and then the Holocaust, it’s hard not to have sympathy for Jews wanting to make a home in Israel. However, once in Israel, they do seem to be doing their best to exhaust that stock of western goodwill by their treatment of their Palestinian neighbours.

Much to talk about over dinner tonight.

The good news is that the software has proved to be perfectly stable in use. I had one little glitch when I first loaded the software, but this was due to some stuff left behind from an old beta of a previous version. Once that was out of the way, everything worked ok.

First impressions:

• it’s faster to get going. When we launched 3.0, there were complaints that the new version took longer to load. The complaints were justified , but the developers have worked hard since them to identify and eliminate the delays, so 3.2 is faster than ever.
• the Calc developers have excelled themselves with a whole raft of new stuff, from sorting to new functions to filters … the list just goes on and on
• the Chart team have also been busy, adding a couple of nice new charts, but also tidying up the menus and making the whole thing more obvious in use. And you’re right, there isn’t am OpenOffice.org Chart, like there is a Calc and a Writer – it’s a set of common tools that are available in the other applications.

So, it’s a shame the final version won’t be available in time for Santa to put in your Christmas stocking, but it will make a nice New Year prezzie . If you’d like to download the beta, head off to the download page, click on Get OpenOffice.org Developer Snapshots, then click on Developer Build – Download the most recent OOo-Dev 3.2.0 build.

• OpenOffice.org Conference sessions  live streaming
• Recorded sessions – available at the end of the day

The OpenOffice.org Marketing Project is always interested to know how people find out about OpenOffice.org?

So the answer is overwhelmingly “by personal recommendation” – 41.2%. Who is making these recommendations??

A clear winner – “a friend” – 22.7%. But the importance of friends to OpenOffice.org doesn’t stop here.

“Colleagues or friends” are also an important source of help – 28.4%, with the “on-line help” system a very close second – 28%.

And in their turn:

almost everyone – 97.3% – is happy to recommend OpenOffice.org.

Did you include a CD of OpenOffice.org in all your Christmas cards and gifts this year?

The 200km drive in the coach was slower, but considerably less stressful than our taxi journey in the opposite direction at the start of the week. The idea of killing over twelve hours in a damp Thessaloniki before the flight departed was pretty dreadful. Andy’s Rough Guide (courtesy Glasgow Public Libraries) suggested a city centre hotel where we could rent a room to dump luggage and possibly let the more exhausted have a kip. At 75 € it must be a record price for a left luggage facility.

However, everyone brightened up considerably during an amazingly good and cheap lunch/dinner. Robert and Andy finally abandoned the attempt to herd the cats and the party split up as people went off to do movies, sightseeing, or Starbucks, using the hotel as a base. By midnight the sewers in the Hotel Atlas had collapsed under the collective volume of British excrement and a series of taxis hurriedly ferried everyone out the airport.

Not much more to say really: 04:04 from Thessaloniki to Zurich; 07:10 from Zurich to Manchester – an opportunity to catch up on some sleep. Good old Northern Rail did their best to round off the week by replacing the Manchester Airport trains with a bus service, but by 14:20 the last of the party dragged themselves off the train at Waverley.

Robert and Rachel, it was an amazing week: your families are great and your friends are wonderful; and we wouldn’t have missed it for anything. Just don’t do it again

We decided to have another bash at Palouki, now officially on the grudge list after our failure to climb it on Monday. This time we ignored the completely bizarre route from Skopelos Trails and simply set off up the hill following the map. An hour and a half later we were on top. It was well worth it. Palouki knocks the socks off Delphi, its higher brother. The top feels like a real hill, and the views are stupendous. By some miracle, the powers that be have actually managed to avoid plonking the sodding great communications masts on the top, and have chosen a slightly lower outlying peak.

From the top we headed on down the other side of the island, then curved back along rough roads round the monasteries. There was still no sign of Heather’s path. We couldn’t find another short cut shown on the map, but a convenient firewatcher told us firmly the path was “closed”. The weather alternated between sunshine and cloudy, but there was a stiff breeze which made for great walking conditions.

Back down at our corner bakery for ice creams. The bakery too has shrunk overnight, with the outermost rows of tables and chairs packed away, and plastic curtains now keeping the wind at bay. We missed seeing Rachel and Lizzie off, as their 16:15 ferry had been diverted to Agnonta. They were traveling home courtesy of ATOL, who had laid on a plane from Skiathos to Gatwick to bring stranded holidaymakers home, followed by a coach journey to Manchester. Bit of a strange end to a wedding with the bride and groom heading home on totally different routes… but then expect the unexpected here.

Dinner with Pat and Sue to round off the evening – they have joined us in the Ionia Hotel for the night, as we all have an extra day in Skopelos thanks to the failure of Exel. Alarm clocks and mobiles set to go off at 05:30 to start the long journey home.

Glossa is another collection of houses piled up in a ridiculous confusion on steeply sloping hillsides. A few phone calls got our plastic money operational again, then it was off to the fields. By some miracle we emerged onto our chosen route from Skopelos Trails and followed a circular route past the Agios Texiarchon monastery and back via the TACAN station – taking care not to point the camera in the direction of this military installation

In all, we ambled along for a couple of hours, stopping to eat and enjoy the views from both sides of the island. The sun shone, the sea was incredibly blue, and the hillsides looked more verdant than those at the south of the island.

To round off the day, how could we resist it – Mamma Mia – aka Carry on Camping – in an open air cinema in Skopelos, in English with Greek sub-titles, with the moon rising above the screen. I knew we were in for audience participation when I saw a mega flagon of local red wine and plastic cups making their way down the row. Now tell me, when was the last time you were in a cinema, and the performance came to an abrupt halt while the projectionist changed the reels on the projector? It was a hoot.

The walk from Palio Klima to Skopelos took us from one side of the island to the other, over probably three quarters of its length, and over its highest hill – Delphi (no, not that one) at 681 metres. The vast majority of the way is on forest tracks, with the odd bit of road and some stretches of footpath.

The weather meant the views to the neighbouring islands were not as clear as they might be, but it was a small price to pay for very comfortable walking conditions. The Skopelos Trails book only led us astray aa couple of times, but in fairness, we were doing the walk “back to front”.

We were back in Skopelos eating some really disgusting chocolate buns at 17:00 or so. When it comes to making sicky buns, the Greeks take a lot of beating. For once, we were not spotted by other wedding guests Some of the early arrivals have started to drift off – Donald and Mal, and Mandy and Rosie had left by the early ferry this morning.

Text from Rachel while we were eating dinner to say that the evening’s excursion was cancelled. There had been plans to meet up at 21:00 and go to the open-air cinema to see Mamma Mia (what else?), but it was too windy and the cinema was closed. We’d noticed a slightly autumnal feel to the air, with the odd drop of rain and a stream of leaves falling on us during dinner.

With the evening free, we decided to do some shopping. I’d had problems topping up my mobile from my Visa card earlier in the day and had to use my debit card instead. After a couple of failed attempts in shops it became obvious our credit card had been stopped, and after a couple of failed attempts at ATMs it looked like our debit cards had been stopped too. This was particularly irritating as we’d carefully rung the credit card centre to tell them we were off to Greece for a week.

Back at the hotel we counted up our Euros, cursed the bank, and wondered how to complete our holiday with no plastic. Then the mobile rang and a robotic voice from the bank took me through recent debit card transactions, and asked me to confirm one by one they were ok. The process was painfully slow – “don’t you know this call is costing me money and you won’t let me top up my phone?”

Looks like tomorrow will be spent on the phone to the bank…

We started bumping into people again in the evening. Rachel was on her way back from the internet cafe just as we were arriving. The sun worshippers had continued their circuit of the beaches on the island. The one bit of local knowledge they hadn’t picked up about today’s beach was that the island ferry creates a mini-tsunami as it passes by. So that’s one upset teenager, and one salt-washed camera, iPod, and phone to argue about with the insurance company.

I settled won in the internet cafe with my Eee PC to do some emails, upload blogs, and check some of the press coverage of the wedding for outrageous inaccuracies. The prize must go to the Edinburgh Evening News, for suggesting that the CAA had sorted everything, leaving Robert delirious with happiness.

When Lizzie joined us at the cafe to check how she was placed for her return flight on Friday, the shabbiness of the full ATOL response became apparent. She was instructed to visit their website and only ring them up as a last resort. The website was useless, as it only mentioned last week’s flights. When she rang, she was told to turn up at Skiathos as normal and she would be sorted by a rep there. I don’t have a good feeling about this.

No sooner had Lizzie left than Donald turned up to do emails. As I said yesterday, Skopelos is a small place

Off to Anne and Desmond’s for a meal with forty or so others – the wedding party plus ex-pat island friends. Unlike most of the other ex-pats (who appear to live a curious semi-detached life), Anne and Desmond live on the island year round, in a wonderful rambling home, half house, half garden. Lizzie told us there had been another disaster the night before – the taxis booked to take people from Limnonari to Skopelos simply hadn’t turned up, leaving her to run a shuttle service.

Despite the late night on Monday, the party still ran on into the beginning of Wednesday. The traditional musicians provided gentle musical accompaniment, and the conversation just flowed…