Well, it's been a bit of a struggle but I've now managed to secure a situation with a computer which has full internet access AND which doesn't get used by anyone else, so can carry on my sporadic thoughts.
Since the last posting various bits and bobs have happened, including (but not limited to) the eventual joining of the Historical Association, the stealing of a couple of train signs (for the overnighters Brussells/Berlin and Berlin/Vienna), the decoration of the house, me getting a new job from September, me getting to go on TV (but not yet) and Colchester United being relegated.
This last thing is possibly the most important. I saw us play and beat Ipswich Town, 2-0, but other results in the week did for us before our 1-1 draw at Leicester City. I was thus faced, on Saturday morning, with a very interesting question. Did I go to Leicester or not? On the positive side, it was a football game and I'd not been to the Walker's Stadium. Indeed, my only experience of sport in Leicester was Leicester Tigers v. Orrell in about 1996, and I was anxious to purge that from the memory. Against, however, was the fact that the game meant nothing at all and would cost about 70 squids, including train fares. In the end, and rather inevitably, I went, making Leicester City ground number 54 visited. Hopefully Scunny will be 55 on the last day of the season. But as I watched us getting pulled apart by Leicester, despite Lisbie giving us the lead, I was conscious of why I was there. It was because I knew, at the end, that Geraint Williams would make a point of coming over and clapping the travelling support (he's probably also worked out that seeing an already-relegated team play 200 miles from their home ground takes a lot of dedication.) Which meant that I, we, the Colchester fans, got to clap him back. That was, in itself, worth the journey.
Back here, ate risotto, went to bed. A fine day, all round. If only I'd not have woken up with a massive hang-over (I reckon I overdid it at the Club last night - the Port is usually what tips the balance) it would've been fine. But I chased those hang-over demons out with orange juice on the train up, and all was well again.
A Cardiff City fan in London said I looked like Hitler. But worryingly, his tone was strangely reverential...
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Saturday, 15 December 2007
Time Passages
The difficult thing about blogs, of course (aside from the fact that I don't want to be identified, chased and finally mown down, so I have to be careful about what I record), is the time it takes to put things together. My blogging life has been around for a good couple of weeks and this is the second of my posts. If my blog were a small baby, you'd assume there was something wrong with it, given the tiny amount of fuss it appears to be making.
My time has been spent constructively, of course. Why, only last night I drunkenly rang up my favourite pub at university and satisfied myself that their beer selection and jukebox was essentially unaltered. With achievements like that, it's no wonder there's little in the way of blogging.
This leads naturally onto the big questions about the most effective ways of spending ones time. I tend to be of the 'if it's got to be done, do it soon' approach, but also the 'if it doesn't need to be done, do nothing' approach. Hence all my work is completed (and well, if I do say so!) well in advance of deadlines, but I've also got a big pile of stuff on my desk that seems to just never go away. The alternative would be to leave important things to the last minute and then get the piddly things done first time, but that wouldn't really work - despite the fact that many in my department seem to operate this way. I was given a document to review at 1:45 the other day, and said I'd easily get it back to them for 3:00, only to be told it was needing to be returned in fifteen minutes. As it happens, I do have things to do at my work, so the document was passed on without me seeing it. Last-minute merchants. Grrr.
The main problem with my own approach, of course, is that one tends to settle for what one has. I often think of grandiose projects, only to do nothing about them on the grounds that I don't actually need to do them. Sometimes this is sensible - no-one constructs a life-boat unless they're on a ship, and even then only in certain rather dramatic circumstances. But it'd be nice to think I was able to organise myself enough to write that admiring letter to Dario Gradi, for instance.
I've not been particularly cynical, radical or liberal as yet, but I can't see that I absolutely have to do that right now...
My time has been spent constructively, of course. Why, only last night I drunkenly rang up my favourite pub at university and satisfied myself that their beer selection and jukebox was essentially unaltered. With achievements like that, it's no wonder there's little in the way of blogging.
This leads naturally onto the big questions about the most effective ways of spending ones time. I tend to be of the 'if it's got to be done, do it soon' approach, but also the 'if it doesn't need to be done, do nothing' approach. Hence all my work is completed (and well, if I do say so!) well in advance of deadlines, but I've also got a big pile of stuff on my desk that seems to just never go away. The alternative would be to leave important things to the last minute and then get the piddly things done first time, but that wouldn't really work - despite the fact that many in my department seem to operate this way. I was given a document to review at 1:45 the other day, and said I'd easily get it back to them for 3:00, only to be told it was needing to be returned in fifteen minutes. As it happens, I do have things to do at my work, so the document was passed on without me seeing it. Last-minute merchants. Grrr.
The main problem with my own approach, of course, is that one tends to settle for what one has. I often think of grandiose projects, only to do nothing about them on the grounds that I don't actually need to do them. Sometimes this is sensible - no-one constructs a life-boat unless they're on a ship, and even then only in certain rather dramatic circumstances. But it'd be nice to think I was able to organise myself enough to write that admiring letter to Dario Gradi, for instance.
I've not been particularly cynical, radical or liberal as yet, but I can't see that I absolutely have to do that right now...
Saturday, 1 December 2007
First Thoughts
Nice of Blogspot to let me do this for free...Whilst my own thoughts are, naturally, valuable, I'm not prepared to pay to let others read them.
But already we're faced with problems here. If I'm to be truly subjective, to accurately report my views and arguments, and generally to stir things up a little (seem difficult? Well, someone's reading this, so that's a first step) I probably oughtn't to say too much that gives me away. It naturally follows that much of what I type will need to be edited and amended. Robbing it of the subjectivity and true emotions. A paradox, though not an exciting one.
I think it's best if I use just a few vague notions as to who I meet, am, and so on, and instead restrict myself to lovely barbed asides...Enjoy whatever may follow.
But already we're faced with problems here. If I'm to be truly subjective, to accurately report my views and arguments, and generally to stir things up a little (seem difficult? Well, someone's reading this, so that's a first step) I probably oughtn't to say too much that gives me away. It naturally follows that much of what I type will need to be edited and amended. Robbing it of the subjectivity and true emotions. A paradox, though not an exciting one.
I think it's best if I use just a few vague notions as to who I meet, am, and so on, and instead restrict myself to lovely barbed asides...Enjoy whatever may follow.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)