Although feeling sometimes like I do rather too much of this flying lark I do like looking at the departure boards in airports and thinking one day, I’ll just turn up and go somewhere random. I like the odd juxtaposition of destinations on this mural. Bangkok and Orkney in the same context – that won’t happen too often. Home tonight, though not until after midnight.
Not easy to encapsulate a day which was the third in a row spent at home trying to entertain Joe (I’ve been single-parenting this weekend) and where the only real distinctiveness was having to do some minor DIY to fix an electrical problem in the house. It’s hard to take photos of the Boy these days without him sticking his tongue out (see October 8th, for example)… so here’s an abstract for you. It might not be exciting, but then again, neither was 20/11/11.
Took a few reasonable photos today but if you want one to really encapsulate the day then here it is. Beer. In front of a real fire. This is how I want to spend my Friday evenings after work, and today, I did.
I spent a good portion of the middle part of my life avoiding London, but recently I have been visiting more often. It was nice today to be able to walk out of a hotel on quite a pleasant late autumn morning and be exploring Covent Garden before everywhere was open and while it was still fairly quiet. I think it’s too early to have Christmas decorations up anywhere – but I suppose these ones are quite attractive.
For reasons I am not at liberty to explain, the wife needed a couple of masks, and this morning I was sent to get them. It’s amazing how many shops are completely full of total tat these days. But what the hell, I still bought two.
Never done one of these before. Having no idea what to expect it was a surprise to see quite how sour- or dead-faced many people are as they shuffle past, or how unwilling many are to acknowledge a ‘hello!’. Others (stallholders, customers) very friendly and encouraging, however. I did not lose money once all things were accounted for and it was an interesting learning experience.
I did very little today except print & frame a bunch of photos so I can try to sell some at this craft fair tomorrow (my first effort to do such a thing – you will doubtless hear more about it tomorrow). The light was poor, and there were few opportunities to get more than a mundane shot.
However, as these are supposed to encapsulate the day – it was 11/11/11 today, and this was taken in my home office at exactly 11:11:… and 14 seconds, by the camera’s clock. Well, I did my best. It doesn’t have a second hand.
This is the job… You find some time to do a bit of research, write it up, hope someone reads it. You go to as many conferences as your limited travel budget will stretch to, you network a bit, you publish a book and try to promote it. You eventually get invited to some other conference where you meet a nice Catalan academic who works in Norway and you write a proposal and eventually get an invite to do the work and suddenly you’re quite big in Scandinavia (or at least, among a very select audience of Scandinavians). It’s quite hard work sometimes but it’s probably better than being, say, a traffic warden.
My last morning in Moscow today – though I’m returning in 6 weeks. I post this while awaiting my flight back to Manchester in Heathrow’s terminal 5. (‘Sympathy for the Devil’ is on the stereo, which makes the wait more bearable.)
I realised I had got through all my time here without a single actual person (Russian or not) appearing in the pictures so tried to rectify that today. Russians are a paradox. When you don’t know them – the severe woman who checks in your coat or bag, the guy who approaches you and hassles you on the street – they can be phenomenally rude. But when you know or work with them they are among the friendliest and most helpful people I know. There is something deep in their national psyche that closes up to strangers, I guess, and you should feel privileged to be admitted to the bosom. It probably explains a lot about their national history.
A day swamped with bad vibes but by the end I had found out the probable cause. Not a pleasant thing at all but not something which affected me directly. At that point I was glad I was able to join friends down at the pub.
I must have come through this back door at least twice a week on average for the last ten years but it’s nice to see it with a fresh eye now and again.
