![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On Thursday I took part in the two minutes silence in memory of the victims of the London bombings. We all went and stood on the lawn at the centre of the campus. It was a very moving experience, made all the more poignant by the revelation that one of our students had died in the atrocity. Our site is on a main road and is also directly under the Heathrow flight path so it is never normally even vaguely quiet, even when the students are on vacation. On Thursday BAA postponed all flights for 5 minutes before and after 12 noon. As planes coming in to land at Heathrow fly over us every two minutes throughout each day it was really noticeable that they were absent. As one of my colleagues commented afterwards silence is very powerful in our noisy modern society. Looking around the people gathered on the lawn it was like a government advert for multi cultural Britain. There were black, white, asian and mixed race people. British and non British. Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Buddhists and those who, like me, have no religion standing together to remember people like us who were murdered whilst travelling to work. One of the reasons I like working where I do is that my colleagues are from vastly different backgrounds but are all committed to the same aims. Off the top of my head I can think of colleagues from Australia, South Africa, Zimbabwe, USA, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Nigeria, Kenya, Lithuania, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Guyana, Grenada, Jamaica, Egypt, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, India, Pakistan and Algeria. And to think that I've never been further than Italy! I should really broaden my travelling horizons!
On a very different note, I just popped downstairs to have my evening mug of peppermint tea and my parents were watching Amir Khan's professional boxing debut. After at least 20 minutes of build up the fight lasted just over a minute before Khan was declared winner. What a stupid sport! I hate boxing at the best of times, but what a waste of time that was. My mum was supporting the opponent, David Bailey, as he's from London and the Bolton crowd all booed him as he made his entrance. Her support didn't do him much good though, he was on his knees after Khan's first punch! To me Amir Khan doesn't look like a boxer but, as my parents pointed out, tonight was only his first professional fight. He might look more boxer like once he's been up against some Americans and Cubans had a few broken noses and black eyes!
Tonight, I was meant to be meeting up with one of the blokes I shared a house with when I lived in Plymouth. Unfortunately, he cancelled so I'm in on a Saturday night again. In actual fact it's not that unfortunate as I've been having stomach probs for a week and going out drinking probably wouldn't have done me much good. Hopefully, we'll be able arrange another meeting in the near future. I was hoping that my Clapham friend would be able to come with me to Reading as it's not a great train ride home at night but she's convinced herself that me and Plymouth bloke are going to turn into couple. I don't know why she thinks this. It's probably due to my track record of turning male friends into "boyfriends". Before, I first got it on with Cardiff bloke I considered him to be the older brother I never had. That makes me sound really weird doesn't it! I don't think anything will happen between me and Plymouth bloke though.
The result of my cancelled evening out is that I got the work I'd bought home done tonight. We had a bit of a crisis on Friday as one of my colleagues unexpectedly didn't come in and there was loads to do so I sneaked some work onto my home email. Now it will be ready on Monday morning and everyone will be happy. Even so, it's going to be a very busy week. On Friday we have interviews for two posts. One will be simple to arrange, but the other is for a prestigious Director post and involves a lunch for 20 odd people, a written task, a tour, presentations by other senior staff and finding space for a panel of six! And there are only three of us in the office that day (there are normally six in the team but two are on holiday and one is having a tooth capped). And, crisis stations, I forgot that the dry cleaners closes at 4pm today so I haven't put my suit in to be done. I'll have to find a 24 hour cleaners and pay through the nose now.
I was planning to go and see 'Wedding Crashers' with Clapham mate this week but I'd forgotten that I was going to the theatre on Thursday. We went to see "Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead". I quite enjoyed it but felt like I needed a student guide book to help me understand what was going on at times. The stage was dressed as a drama studio complete with plastic school type chairs and radiators around the edges. It was clever and very Brechtian but probably would've worked better in a less traditional theatre. Richmond Theatre is a very old and very ornately decorated proscenium arch venue. The walls and ceilings are covered in beautiful plaster mouldings and paintings of Shakespeare characters and Greek goddesses and the carpets are red velvet. It is very odd seeing a blank stage in those surroundings. In many ways the venue detracted attention from the performance.
I'm enjoying the contents of my recent Amazon delivery. Last night I watched the first two episodes of the first series of Press Gang. Although Dexter Fletcher's American accent is less than convincing I really enjoyed it and thought it was much funnier than I remembered. It is quite scary to think that it was first broadcast in 1989 (when I was 8 years old) which is now 16 years ago. I'm much older than I feel these days. I can remember that Press Gang was broadcast in the evenings and that my Dad didn't approve of it so it was difficult to get to watch it. I guess it was aimed at teenagers and I was a bit young for it. Looking at it yesterday none of the themes were dodgy though. It's interesting to see how many of the cast built sucessful acting careers. I think the proportion is way higher than for similar teenage dramas. Julia Sahwala, Dexter Fletcher, Lucy Benjamin, Charlie Creed Miles and Paul Reynolds all crop up on TV or in the Movies on a regular basis.
I've also been making use of my Ministry of Sound: Maximum Bass CD. It's actually quite an embarrassing CD to own as the cover notes are full of pictures of scantily clad women and include an article about 'Cruising!' I love some of the tracks though. The Urban Takeover mix of Jungle Brothers, California Love by 2Pac and True by Jaimeson and Angel Blue are particular favourites. I must have the ears of an 18 year old bloke who owns a hugely personalised Golf I think.
On a very different note, I just popped downstairs to have my evening mug of peppermint tea and my parents were watching Amir Khan's professional boxing debut. After at least 20 minutes of build up the fight lasted just over a minute before Khan was declared winner. What a stupid sport! I hate boxing at the best of times, but what a waste of time that was. My mum was supporting the opponent, David Bailey, as he's from London and the Bolton crowd all booed him as he made his entrance. Her support didn't do him much good though, he was on his knees after Khan's first punch! To me Amir Khan doesn't look like a boxer but, as my parents pointed out, tonight was only his first professional fight. He might look more boxer like once he's been up against some Americans and Cubans had a few broken noses and black eyes!
Tonight, I was meant to be meeting up with one of the blokes I shared a house with when I lived in Plymouth. Unfortunately, he cancelled so I'm in on a Saturday night again. In actual fact it's not that unfortunate as I've been having stomach probs for a week and going out drinking probably wouldn't have done me much good. Hopefully, we'll be able arrange another meeting in the near future. I was hoping that my Clapham friend would be able to come with me to Reading as it's not a great train ride home at night but she's convinced herself that me and Plymouth bloke are going to turn into couple. I don't know why she thinks this. It's probably due to my track record of turning male friends into "boyfriends". Before, I first got it on with Cardiff bloke I considered him to be the older brother I never had. That makes me sound really weird doesn't it! I don't think anything will happen between me and Plymouth bloke though.
The result of my cancelled evening out is that I got the work I'd bought home done tonight. We had a bit of a crisis on Friday as one of my colleagues unexpectedly didn't come in and there was loads to do so I sneaked some work onto my home email. Now it will be ready on Monday morning and everyone will be happy. Even so, it's going to be a very busy week. On Friday we have interviews for two posts. One will be simple to arrange, but the other is for a prestigious Director post and involves a lunch for 20 odd people, a written task, a tour, presentations by other senior staff and finding space for a panel of six! And there are only three of us in the office that day (there are normally six in the team but two are on holiday and one is having a tooth capped). And, crisis stations, I forgot that the dry cleaners closes at 4pm today so I haven't put my suit in to be done. I'll have to find a 24 hour cleaners and pay through the nose now.
I was planning to go and see 'Wedding Crashers' with Clapham mate this week but I'd forgotten that I was going to the theatre on Thursday. We went to see "Rosencratz and Guildenstern are Dead". I quite enjoyed it but felt like I needed a student guide book to help me understand what was going on at times. The stage was dressed as a drama studio complete with plastic school type chairs and radiators around the edges. It was clever and very Brechtian but probably would've worked better in a less traditional theatre. Richmond Theatre is a very old and very ornately decorated proscenium arch venue. The walls and ceilings are covered in beautiful plaster mouldings and paintings of Shakespeare characters and Greek goddesses and the carpets are red velvet. It is very odd seeing a blank stage in those surroundings. In many ways the venue detracted attention from the performance.
I'm enjoying the contents of my recent Amazon delivery. Last night I watched the first two episodes of the first series of Press Gang. Although Dexter Fletcher's American accent is less than convincing I really enjoyed it and thought it was much funnier than I remembered. It is quite scary to think that it was first broadcast in 1989 (when I was 8 years old) which is now 16 years ago. I'm much older than I feel these days. I can remember that Press Gang was broadcast in the evenings and that my Dad didn't approve of it so it was difficult to get to watch it. I guess it was aimed at teenagers and I was a bit young for it. Looking at it yesterday none of the themes were dodgy though. It's interesting to see how many of the cast built sucessful acting careers. I think the proportion is way higher than for similar teenage dramas. Julia Sahwala, Dexter Fletcher, Lucy Benjamin, Charlie Creed Miles and Paul Reynolds all crop up on TV or in the Movies on a regular basis.
I've also been making use of my Ministry of Sound: Maximum Bass CD. It's actually quite an embarrassing CD to own as the cover notes are full of pictures of scantily clad women and include an article about 'Cruising!' I love some of the tracks though. The Urban Takeover mix of Jungle Brothers, California Love by 2Pac and True by Jaimeson and Angel Blue are particular favourites. I must have the ears of an 18 year old bloke who owns a hugely personalised Golf I think.
