An abstract, really: while sitting in Preston waiting out a train connection. It was good to be inside on a cold, windy day, sharp contrast with the balm of last weekend. There are four heads here, even if initial viewing might suggest only three.
Something to do on a Bank Holiday Monday. Thanks to all that Australia stuff, the Easter break had a tenuous and extended beginning this year — but today was its definite end. Back to work tomorrow.
The clock on my camera was set to 4.15am when I took this but I can’t remember whether this is before or after I adjusted it out of Emirates time when I changed planes in Abu Dhabi. Maybe it’s Gulf time and maybe it’s UK time and maybe we were somewhere over [insert Eastern European country of choice] at this point; either way the night was endless, timeless. This is only the blog’s third 4.nn am shot and the first two were both in its first year.
So begins the long journey home. Allowing for the time difference, some 28 hours elapsed door to door, between leaving the office in Melbourne city centre at about noon (Eastern Australian time) on Monday and getting back home on what was Tuesday morning UK time, but felt like late afternoon to the body clock. This first shot of two was taken only an hour or so into it all. There is a strange levitaty quality about the bag, don’t you think?
One of the things to admire about Australia is that it leads the world when it comes to the preparation and serving of a proper cup of tea. Always loose-leaf, always in a pot and thus with full ceremony: here, in ACMI (the Australian Centre for the Moving Image). I like the various circles on this shot. It’s also, technically, a self-portrait.
My last full day here in Melbourne — on this trip. I hope there will be more. A fine city.
There are many fine things about Australia. The beer is not one of them. Pile it high and pump it out is the usual approach, and if you find something more delicately crafted, I bet it’s come from somewhere else (probably New Zealand). Ah well. You can’t have everything in a country.
Regardless of anything else that has ever happened on any of my trips to the Middle East — I have never come away complaining about the food in any way. In my opinion — the nicest cuisine in the world…
This is how I spent my day, up in a huge tin pipe, consuming inordinate amounts of fossil fuels and generally being a little bored. I got the usual window seat in the hope that, as it was a daytime flight, there would be plenty of photo opportunities, but there were clouds almost everywhere, including over places one would think would normally be rather sunny (like Iraq, for example). Thus, this interior — the 11th pic on the blog where I’ve been unable to specify what country I was in at the time.
However, I do know where I’m going, and barring the highly unexpected there will be four different countries coming up in the next three weeks, three of which I have not visited properly before (meaning, more than just changing planes there). But it’s a work trip — mostly — so you may just get a load of office interiors, particularly for this first few days….
Just to show that I am still making occasional appearances on campus and, y’know, doing some work. My colleagues Susanne (left) and Pauline make a point about the concept mapping. I like that they are somewhat disembodied, but you can see that their hands are helping with the thinking time.
There was excitement to the day, but this came courtesy of Brighton & Hove Albion FC coming from 2-0 down with two minutes to go and still go through at Millwall in the FA Cup quarter-final; but the only photographic record of it is a selfie of me looking worryingly manic, so I will spare you that. Not much else to show however; we are clearing out the bedroom (not easy in a house with very limited spare space) in preparation for decorating it, and the unusually empty shelves are the best I can do. The film books still remained to be packed as of this morning, but they’ve gone now. The sheep skulls have not…
