There was no prospect at all of my leaving the house today. Thoughts — and the discussions with the Zoomland colleagues depicted, vaguely, at the top of the laptop screen — were of planning for next year, not finishing off this one. This is a photowhack: the one and only photograph I took today.
Not only did I not leave the house today but I barely left this room. From 9am – 4pm at least my study, and (more specifically) the laptop within it, was the nerve centre of an international network of researchers, contributions from (at least) the UK, USA, South Africa, France, the Netherlands and — most importantly and relevantly — St Helena. Here, the Chief Minister of the latter territory, Julie Thomas, makes her introductions to the day. I have spent quite a bit of time and effort on getting this 2-day event organised and I am very satisfied that it all worked out. As far as we can ascertain this is/was the first online conference specifically devoted to the little island on which I have recently spent plenty of time.
I have met Julie by the way. If all Chief or Prime Ministers or Presidents were like her the world would probably be a better place.
If you ask me, ‘hybrid’ meetings and conferences are a disaster, certainly if you’re one of the online participants. But online-only gigs work well enough, particularly when most of the others in the ‘room’ are located in Canada. So let’s proclaim from the upstairs office, instead: from where we get to look at the little details of other people’s offices.
The weather is warm and pleasant at the moment, and very unconducive to staying indoors, even if I did have to work. So, I didn’t. Stay indoors, that is. The other thing comes with the territory, for a bit longer in my life at least.
After a spell of wide-ranging vistas and skies, all I saw today was this room, reclaimed from Joe now he has returned to Scotland. The implements of a day’s work are all in place. And my hair did need a brush. Outside, just more rain, anyhow.
This is nothing whatsoever to do with today’s global media event, which I could not have spared the time to watch even if the desire had been there: declaring a national holiday at short notice is all well and good but it didn’t mean the jobs went away. Not least the new Mac, that is still in the process of being shaped to look as much like the old one as possible. Though no thanks to Apple, for taking away most of the useful ports on anything they shipped after about 2017. That’s another £64 to the Cupertino coffers for the umbilicus one now needs even to look at all that data sitting on the backup drive.
The absence of recent posts and the aforementioned ‘computer problems’ are here represented by a crap photo, but that just epitomises it all. Still, I’m back up and running again now, 11 days later. Kind of.
A tough assignment today. Online classes late in the afternoon then another in the evening meant I couldn’t go out. The world outside was grey and dull — though at least, still light, at approaching 8pm. This is the kind of day that will eventually kill the creative spirit in me, and thus, this blog. But here’s my best effort.
Eight and a half hours’ work today — almost all spent in online meetings. Even in the depths of lockdown I did not do such a day. These objects marked the limits of my real world. (Yes, that’s a sticker of Graham Chapman’s face stuck to the Macbook.)
Being 42 