Where there is a conference, then there will be a conference reception, usually held in whatever local municipal building is considered most convenient: here, Oulu City Hall. It had a ceiling considered worthy of documenting by my fellow delegate Jesús — who comes from Mexico, the sort of place where they name their men Jesús, a name I have always thought must be something to live up to.
Jonny handles e-learning technology for our little band of teachers. I am happy with this portrait of him, man in his context and all that. Though aren’t desktops starting to look rather retro these days? All those wires. How 1990s.
The sun shows no signs of going away, so rather than wonder when the hosepipe bans and drought orders will come in, let’s just enjoy it — albeit, under cover. Too hot to sit out in direct sunlight for long, even with a beer. Mr John Bailey makes at least his third appearance on the blog.
Two LCD Soundsystem gigs in a year… But being brilliant and versatile, they could play a whole different set than last time in London. No one is ever going to do high-quality gig photography from the next-to-back row high up in the circle and with my camera: but it’ll do to document the evening. James Murphy is a master lyricist (“Drunk girls know that love is an astronaut… it comes back, but it’s never the same”) and superb front man yet always remains a slightly chubby, unshaven fortysomething in yesterday’s T-shirt. Which is why we love him.
A very low-key day, as yesterday was. Very little happened, and this picture of a picture is as good as it gets today. Still, the teeth are healthy ones — Joe should feel satisfied with this — more so than mine were when I pictured my own X-ray a while back.
It’s been a very busy week. But one reason for this is that it’s been the last week of teaching; I do not have to stand up in front of students and sound intelligent again until about the 28th September. I need some head-space, so this is a good thing. But then again I do miss them when they’re not around. Here we line up for our ceremonial end-of-term photograph; this little clump is about a fifth of the whole, this time round.
One reason I have come back to Tromsø is to make an educational video, and the filming for that took all day. It ended with this alien apparatus hovering a couple of feet from my face, as Mark and Per-Frank look on. I think their intentions were benign. These are weird things, but effective — I’ve seen the rushes…
As it was on Wednesday, so it was tonight. April 2018 in the UK skipped over spring entirely and went from winter to high summer. A Friday evening, the sun was out, the usual suspects were in attendance.
Some of the nice people who invited me to Ljubljana to do my thing. Whatever the speaker has said, Polona (on the right), Lyn, and the gentleman whose name I can’t remember, certainly think it was funny. So that’s it for my brief time in Slovenia — it looked very pretty, but becomes just another place that I wish I’d had more time to spend in.
Let’s have a change from snow and winter. I’m sure there will be more tomorrow. Almost exactly a year from when she was pictured at dinner on 10/3/17, on my first visit to Tromsø (the present one being my fourth), here is Helene again. I know she does a lot more than just eat dinner….
Being 42 