I’m reading Bleak House these days, feeling that my Dickens knowledge is lacking. I can’t say I’m loving it, but I can respect it and it is certainly very funny. I was surprised to come across Miss Wisk the feminist, and learned of JS Mill’s extreme disapproval of how she’s presented in the book. I […]
Change of plan
A quiet day today, with a couple of meetings and a bit of work, and a bit of not going to a biennale event after it changed the starting time for the third time, this time a couple of hours before the actual starting time, which did not leave me confident that it would start […]
Double-bind
It’s the familiar double-bind. On ordinary days, working days, I feel like there is not much to write about, and I want to get off my computer anyway. On interesting days, like the days when I was travelling through Central Asia, there is so much to do and absorb that I can’t stop to write […]
Personal enmity
Murders are often attributed to ‘personal enmity’ in Pakistani newspapers, I suppose a relic of colonial reporting. Strange what lingers and what doesn’t. It was a working day in which I did most of my work in the second half. Began with a session with my trainer, then a short work call, then faffing around. […]
Over-committing
As usual I find myself over-committing. A new client I was keen on asked for some work, I said yes. An older client asked for some work, I said yes. Meanwhile, a third client has me working virtually full-time. Well, a couple of weeks to get through.
Hard day
A hard day today, I’m not sure why. I woke up feeling trapped by work, though there was not much going on, and then was a bit caught and fumbly at meetings. I had a fairly straightforwaed piece to write and here I am still not-writing it, half an hour after the end of the […]
Chugging along
The back still quite painful, but shifted a little so that it no longer feels tight and seized up, but does feel more painful. Despite more stabby pain this felt like a positive development somehow. A day of small annoyances otherwise, some at work (a bad edit of something I’d written), some from myself (realising […]
New work
Began a new bit of work today, and of course immediately got multiple emails about other work opportunities, bah. So it seems to go, feast or famine.
Working hours
Had a meeting and have changed my work plans for the first half of this year to make them more reliable but also more restrictive. A bit of a hassle since we’re off to Egypt soon, but necessary if I’m to take a long break in the summer. What I’ll be working on is moderately […]
Pill bugs
Also known, according to Wikipedia, as roly polies, woodlice, slater bugs, cheesy bugs, sowbugs, doodlebugs, butcher boys, cellar bugs, carpenters, bed pissers, closed pork, parson’s pigs, bench biters, chiggy pigs, chuckie pigs, little pigs, potato bugs and gramersows, a list which one might reasonably be sceptical about, but in any event the scientific name for […]