Tuesday 4th July 2017, 7.25pm (day 2,140)
Feels like a while since I have spent any proper time at home, with its indoor herb garden, its dust bunnies, its strange collection of bits of dead animal.
Being 42
Life, one day at a time
View on leaving Cannon Street station
Monday 3rd July 2017, 8.40am (day 2,139)
Last day of this seven-day road trip to both ends of the country. This view is seen by thousands of commuters daily just before they pull into Cannon Street station in London, or just after they leave it (which is what I did this morning). Tower Bridge is on the left, the Shard, now Britain’s tallest building, dominates the view. London is a fine city and I seem to be spending an increasing amount of time here, but I am glad I do not live here all the time.
Evening in Argyle Square
Sunday 2nd July 2017, 6.40pm (day 2,138)
Still in London, and back in the usual haunt of Argyle Square, home of the cheaper hotels around King’s Cross. And a nice place to chill out on a sunny evening, as it was. Like the textures on this shot, and the colours.
Into the Unknown
Saturday 1st July 2017, 1.20pm (day 2,137)
The Saturday afternoon of this weekend in London was spent at the Barbican centre, where at the moment, among other things, there is a superb exhibition of sci-fi paraphernalia, films, art and so on. If you are a geek and are anywhere near London, you really do have to go and see this — John Hurt’s space suit from Alien, Leonard Nimoy’s from Star Trek The Motion Picture (Spock’s space suit!!), the original screenplay from 2001, storyboards from many movies including Dune and Star Wars… and those were just my personal highlights. Go! I don’t know what movie these two were enjoying but I like the image, the face, the shadows.
Catching the London flight
Friday 30th June 2017, 4.25pm (day 2,136)
I have been excessively mobile during June. The trips to and from Siberia and Norway had already taken 11 flights and eight different airports, and on the last day of June I added one more flight and two airports — Aberdeen to London City. Too much… I need to reconnect with home over the next seven weeks (the next major trip being the last two weeks of August to the USA). How is Aberdeen airport? Same as other airports, except that it doesn’t seem to have been refurbished since about 1980.
Granite City steps
Thursday 29th June 2017, 6.05pm (day 2,135)
Aberdeen is known as the Granite City and for good reason, as almost every building in the centre seems to be made of this mid-grey stone. It’s not unattractive, but on a day of foul weather like today was the effect can be to swamp you in grey. This picture was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, but yes, I could perhaps have been six inches to the right for perfect symmetry.
Gobinder sorts the blinds out
Wednesday 28th June 2017, 8.45am (day 2,134)
Even if one is a professor of information science (as Gobinder is), one may still take on the responsibility of getting the lighting in the room right, prior to the opening session on day 2 of the i3 conference…
Library, University of Aberdeen
Tuesday 27th June 2017, 6.25pm (day 2,133)
It’s conference season… I got up at 5am this morning and spent seven hours on a train to come north to Aberdeen, where I was two years ago at this time of year, for the same conference (i3, at the Robert Gordon University). We had our opening reception in the Sir Duncan Rice library of the University of Aberdeen, and that was an extremely impressive building, with this eight-storey high twisted atrium running up through the centre.
Waiting for my interview
Monday 26th June 2017, 10.30am (day 2,132)
How many generations of students have spent their time waiting around in corridors, until the time they are called into the room? It doesn’t change. Did I get the job? Not this time.
Joe at the Handmade Parade
Sunday 25th June 2017, 12.15pm (day 2,131)
Having taken Friday off work because of the funeral Sunday was a day at the desk for me, but at least around lunchtime there was the distraction of the 2017 Handmade Parade, Hebden Bridge’s annual photo-fest. Having featured this event on several occasions before (it’s made it every year from 2012 onwards), let’s add distinctiveness to this year’s entry by featuring Joe in his home-made finery. As ever, hearty congratulations to all who took part, the level of effort and creativity which goes into this totally non-corporate event still amazes me.
