Balance, Half, Tankard, Yazoo & Common Room
Balance.
Work was so up and down this week that most of the time I was borderline schizophrenic.
We released a major update of our latest product to slavering hordes on Monday and as we should have predicted, not much happened. As is often the case with software, most effort is not apparent to anyone except those who take the time to be interested in code and similar sexiness. Due to a design decision made long before I hopped aboard the project, updates are a long and tediously repetitious thing, but luckily I did this bit last time. This time round, it was left to me to constantly interrupt my industrious colleague with witty banalities. There was nothing I could do about it. It was his turn and that was that. It all went well though and we solved a huge number of problems. By Tuesday night it was obvious that the long awaited (by a huge few) version 7.0a was a success.
On Wednesday, I made a mistake I have made often before and sent an Email to someone important without thinking it through first and the reply really took the wind out of my sails. I tried to console myself with the sort of cheery and contemplative nonsense I dispense towards my colleague when he feels the same way but alas, I was not in the mood to believe myself. Things picked up on Thursday when I lined up two of Neil’s famous training workshops for the coming week. Time once more to slap on a funny wig, glowing red nose and huge shoes. Figuratively anyway.
My imminent students are just fortunate I couldn’t fit a little car with exploding doors into the lift.
Training a group of people who are having time off from something far less fun is always rewarding anyway. My school friends who remember how much we ‘enjoyed’ fire-fighting instructional films because it meant we didn’t have to spend a few hours running through muddy farm fields will appreciate where I am coming from on this.
Friday was spent working on my Powerpoint presentation for the aforementioned training. Spending two hours on one particular slide may seem excessive, but that 30 second part of the session will be a corker, trust me. Honk. Honk.
Half.
Slimming World again this week. As you can see by the graph on the bottom right, I only lost ½ pound this week, but it is still heading downwards. I am fairly sure why I didn’t lose much last week so all I have to do is not do that again and all should be well. My sister Jo joined last week and she managed to lost 6 pounds in her first week, all thanks (she says) to my very filling sausage and bean casserole. The whole group were scribbling the recipe down so this Thursday should be fun when the reviews come in.
Tankard.
A long overdue acknowledgement of a kind gesture. This here tankard, now all cleaned up and almost shiny, belonged to David Brooshooft (forever Billy to several thousand chaps spread the world over) and lived at a seldom mentioned public house in Guston frequented by his goodself and many other Duke of York’s masters. Last November, on Old Boys Weekend, sadly in my absence, a meeting of minds and generosity between Stan, Sean, Dave Shott, Pete Sampson, Pete Smythe, Dave Harris, the landlord of the pub and others of whom I am not aware resulted in a decision that led to the tankard ending up in my possession. Despite a heavy cleaning, I am not sure that I will ever be drinking from it but that doesn’t matter. The only time I ever really drink is in November with my old school chums and I would be too scared that I would lose it.
To own something like this is a huge (and slightly surreal) privelage. Bill Brooshooft had a big influence on my early life and I will treasure it as I treasure the friendship of those who were involved in the process that ended with it arriving at my house.
Yazoo.
This is almost too cool to be true. Yazoo - Vince Clarke and Alison Moyet - are to reform and tour in June this year. They split in 1983 after just two albums, possibly because they heard how I played them to death and felt that the walls of Wolseley House at The Duke of York’s had been exposed to more than enough happy synthpop. 25 years later, I still play them to death (at the moment actually), so to some of us they never went away. Oddly, despite the time-shifting, nostalgia-ruining nature of the IPod, I still completely associate their music with our 4th Year common room.
What a birthday year this is going to be…
Hi Neil,
funny that to most of the rest of the world, taking custody of a piece of old pewter would hardly seem to be a cause celebe, but there are a few of us that understand. it is priceless quite literally.
cool photo of your self and the website kids had a laugh at your photos when you where a kid.
Ahh , the pleasure is in the giving matey , Pete Smythe was there at the time as well , as was Taff Harris [ Your Second Year who took the initial photo ] .
We all agreed that this tankard , is hardly likely to ever be hidden away again and forgotten.
Glad it brought you good fuzzy memories.