spread

This week I'm dealing with Helsinki and Houston, which is quite a timezone spread. The worst meeting scheduling was for 23:30, which was a tiny bit late to start a decent conversation.

The theory is that everyone can get together and have a single conversation, but sometimes it simply chops the debate into several smaller pieces. It's still possible to get the big picture, but it can also be somewhat filtered.

So I'll admit I'm thinking up some new plans at the moment, beyond inventing the 25 hour day.

...And I do realise that there's around 31 hours in the day already, if one follows the sun in the right direction.

But I suppose there's always a risk of going around in circles.

trashed laureate

A new form of Poet Laureate was created a few days ago, with the Trashed Laureate moments at the recent Trashed event. A simple process to collect lines, blend them together and create a single work, with the best lines awarded a laureate-like bottle of port.


[1] I want to live a million more lives;
dine with a million more people, say to each;
show me the workings of your world, 
before this one winds down.

[2]The house sags on itself as clumsily as a southpaw’s scribblings,
[3]The sky-blue of the china lay scattered;
[4]If you didn’t associate with anyone who’d done a bad thing…
you wouldn’t know anyone at all.

When you shout it makes me horny.
With a great aplomb, the frozen lugworm 
grew a third nostril and besmirched 
the bowl of peanuts with a large ironing board.

[5]The cymbals hiss, the dragons bliss 
soaring high the clouds do die.
Cornice gleam is cornish ice-cream
[6]Alluring, alliterative alliance of arts.
We toss our syllables towards the stars…

Hand in a Jar.
No ideas spring to mind, I’ve scoured the thoughtscape of my mind
Oh well least I tried, now be a good sport 
and hand me that port 

[7]Motors drone, lights shimmer
An ancient story Arcs through the night.
[8]Life is about randomness, it makes my soul shine.
Amazing, grazing its all about dazing
The beast of uncertainty stands before my eyes 
should I walk the right or be the man whom I despise?

[9]Make wine & drink the music.
Paint a beat and make a picture.
Oop, my soup is gloop!
[10]Ten green bottles, preening on the walls.

When you shout it all feels better

[1  Poet Laureate Winner : Jake Campbell]
[2 Claire Thomas]
[3 Viccy Adams]
[4 Rob John Waters]
[5 Andrew Sclater]
[6 the incomplete poet R.Viglionisi]
[7 Ben H]
[8 Sandra]
[9 Abraham Lincoln]
[10 Steve R]

snoitcurtsni eht daer ton od

It's a kind of reflective day for me today.

I've been into the main office and then working on a project with some folk in Sweden. On this occasion I've sidestepped the travel.

And perhaps because of the relatively slow pace of the weekend, I don't feel that I've caught up with the things I intended to do and have a slight sense of slipping backwards.

There's been a enough of those little "spanner in works" things popping up which have created a variety of deviations from plan.

Sometimes its better not to read the instructions.

cayo

Sunday evening and I'm watching television.

Last weekend was pretty hectic and as it concluded a few of us sat together in a pub wondering how we'd packed so much in.

By contrast, this weekend has blurred for different reasons; a combination of Saturday's late start after a mid evening Friday return from the airport. I didn't even unpack until Saturday afternoon.

Add some household tasks and a Sunday bike ride followed by hours of business work and the weekend soon evaporated.

Right now I can hear the distant squeak of a blueberry cheesecake coming from the refrigerator.

It needs liberation.

frying tonight

We had a power outage at home yesterday and a resultant selection of devices that don't have battery backup have subtly revealed themselves over the last few hours.

Today I spotted a little box flashing an orange light as a sign that all was not well. Indeed the box and its twin were attached to a now dormant grey box that used to have pretty green and yellow lights flashing.

The power cut also shut down the home disk server and although it restarted itself, it decided to be a little secretive and not re-announce itself to the network.

I restarted it all in a couple of minutes, but it did remind me of the olden days of mystery device drivers and numerous reboots required to fix anything.

Normal service is now resumed albeit with one less grey box of now fried electronics. I'm not quite sure what it did anyway.

vacuum packed

Flying around this week, with some early starts and late nights.

Along the way a languid evening meeting in a castle and a successful negotiation of the Brussels bus system. Then staying in a posh hotel that transformed itself overnight into a conference centre exhibiting bright orange tractor-sized cleaning systems for public spaces.

The hotel was very clean.

And the memorable and entirely genuine question from an over-travelled American colleague, who asked me which country we were in.

I had a chance to say, "It's Thursday, so it must be Belgium".

favicon in blogger

A reminder about how to set a 16x16 favicon to appear in Blogger:

<link rel='shortcut icon' href="http://myfaviconaddress.ico" type='image/x-icon'></link>

The insert goes after the <Title> in the HTML.

I just had to reset it because I changed templates.

bubble

What a difference a day makes.

The signs of last week's London festivities have rapidly moved, as have the Press who have moved to the next paper filling story.

Truly a Shakespearean weekend of world events but strange to have been in a separate bubble whilst much of it was unfolding.

situation

any port would do

Well, we were on a boat when the wedding was about to happen, but actually pulled into port in time to get to a pub just as Kate was leaving the hotel to head for the church.

The flat screen telly was surrounded by well wishing spectators and apart from a passing spaniel and a single bemused looking tourist, the whole area was watching television.

So we had the 'aahs' for the dress and later the stifled laughter as the ring needed to be slightly screwed on. And next day the communal table was groaning from the weight of newspaper supplements.

Royal Wedding bunting for Kate and Wills

There will be plenty like this along the route.

I am not sure why they have to call her Princess William instead of Princess Catherine. It's an ugly anachronism.

crowing

I'm pretty sure this is a crow.

It's not big enough to be a raven and you only get rooks in groups. "A rook alone is a crow, crows in a group are rooks", being the obvious reminder.

It's still hard to take a picture of one in flight though.

A bit like the Royals.

In London it's not that difficult to spot various members of the Royal family from time to time. I'll include William as an example, but like the flying crow it's still difficult to get a good picture. I suppose mine, like the bird picture, are simply opportunist and unpremeditated.

So here's one of William with some of his gang and Harry with Chelsy.

See, I managed to miss completely whoever was accompanying William.

And here's one of another occasion when they two boys were out with their dad. Interesting to note that everyone is watching them.

I guess more than a few eyes will be on at least one of them tomorrow.

Not mine though because we'll be on a boat*.

*UPDATE: I am told the boat has a television.