What a great day! Though I’d quite forgotten what a real day at work was like. I am down in the basement in the documentation office.

It’s bizarre but everything I discussed with Nick, my supervisor, was something I’ve learned since starting my MSc. And the standard they use is SPECTRUM, which I wrote about in an essay last semester. Quite a handy place to volunteer then.

The place is a bit of a labyrinth so my first lesson was navigation. We met at one entrance then left for another entrance where I was shown how to get through the secret door and up to the control room. From here it was across a gallery, through a second secret door and down a few hundred steps into the bowels of the museum where it is quiet. It’s the quiet you notice most. Rachel said (Rachel is an Australian who also volunteers, working on Fridays too) that sometimes an hour will go by in absolute silence. I find that a bit frightening.

I have a special Science Museum pass which Nick said I must wear all the time. I hope he meant at work, because I have taken it off now. I also have to go to the control each day to collect the special pass which will give me access to the secret doors.

Nick spent ages going through the meticulous documentation prepared by Oliver, the boss of volunteers and then, finally, we started on MIMSY. MIMSY is the database and what a database! Extraordinary. HUGE! COMPLEX! I really like it. I think I shall enjoy updating MIMSY.

What happens is that a curator wanders around with a spreadsheet in his hand. He isn’t anywhere specific, checking things but just might be there because he is having his lunch. But he always carries the spreadhseet just in case he spots something. When he does, he looks at the spreadsheet and if it doesn’t have a location in the location column, he fills it in with pen. This then comes to me and I update the database. That’s it. I will be updating records for medical and dentistry objects.

I know that sounds really, really dull but I’m going to enjoy it. And I managed to get the train home with Mirinda though it was awfully crowded and we couldn’t sit together until Ash Vale mainly because she doesn’t employ a buffer.

Actually, it’s really three. My assignment for Information Retrieval was in two parts. I just finished and submitted them. This is a good thing because they are due tomorrow morning by 10am.

I managed to fit in a few breaks today. Naturally, I took the puppies up to the park. It looked so lovely, I took a photo of them sitting in the avenue of trees.

The poodles sitting obediently in the Avenue of Trees, Farnham Park

For another break I mowed the lawn for the second time this year. And during the day I managed to work my way through the washing.

Anyway, I decided to celebrate finishing my essay(s) by putting the Globe photos on the website. You can see them here.

Tomorrow I have a big day. It’s my second session at the Science Museum. I have a huge mound of clean clothes to put away and then I’m off to bed.

It is very difficult concentrating on a Philosophy for Digital Libraries with kids in the same carriage of the train. It doesn’t help that little kids seem to only speak at great volume for the simplest of things. The most annoying thing (ignoring babies that just cry and scream for the entire journey) is the kid that keeps asking the same question, over and over again.

“Look mum! A cow. Mum! Look! A cow! Mum! Look mum!…” and on and on. Each time the volume increases until ‘mum’ says something dismissive like “Oh yes, isn’t that nice” half an hour after the cow has disappeared. Surprisingly this kid today looked out the window and exclaimed “Look mum! A caterpillar! Mum! Look!” It did get her attention immediately. I assume he has the eyes of a hawk.

But it’s not something you get annoyed at. Unless the kids are actually misbehaving and sometimes not even then. There is a rule in civilisation that states that it is expected and therefore mandatory. Very different to the Victorian’s ideas! And I’m not advocating a return to such times. I think it’s important for kids to express themselves as they experience the world.

What I’m wanting is a train carriage where parents with children are not allowed. Like height restrictions on fairground rides, there should be a ‘sitting quietly and reading’ level that must be adhered to. And it should not be optional like the laughable quiet zones presently on trains. To show how this works, I’m in one now but sadly the parents and the kids cannot read the sign above their heads.

And so, instead of putting in a good hour of work on my essays, I am reduced to typing up the beginning of my blog entry for today. Of course, it does mean I can now get an extra 15 minutes of essay work when I get home, so I guess all things level out somewhat.

However, a lot of the disruption is to the impossible to retrieve flow. I had a lovely quiet four stations and was happily climbing into the writing zone when the carriage was invaded. I tried to concentrate on what I was doing but the sheer force and volume of the under 5 year old and the screeching of the baby slammed the brakes on my brain which simply shut down, losing the thread. Very annoying when I was hoping to get a substantial amount of work done during my two journeys today to see Mirinda for lunch.

They left the train at Clapham Junction which gave me 10 minutes before Waterloo. I decided to just do some reading.

I have become a bit bored with wearing a baseball cap and so I have changed my style somewhat. I am going for the ‘mislaid artist living happily in Tahiti’ look.

My new straw hat

I am halfway through the essay that is due on Friday but think I deserve a rest. Nicktor is due any minute and I figure that’s a pretty fine idea for a rest. I haven’t seen him for a fortnight! According to Dawn, he was missing me. There he is at the door.

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We had a lovely night though the chef at the 6 Bells was off with a tummy bug so dinner consisted of cheese on toast. Sitting in the beer garden, though, Ruddles beers in hand and chatting men chat, was very pleasant.

We watched two movies. The first, called Wonderland, was based on a true story of a mass murder crime in the 1980s which was never really solved. It’s not a movie I’d recommend. I enjoyed it but don’t think Nicktor did. Phoebe from Friends was in it. Sadly, Val Kilmer was also in it. I’m not that keen on Mr Kilmer after he treated the extras like rubbish when he starred in the Island of Dr Moreau in Queensland many years ago. I had it first hand from extras who worked on the film. According to them, he was ignorant and self obsessed as opposed to Marlon Brando who was actually very nice.

The second movie was Scary Movie, which is always worth a laugh, particularly after a few drinks. Nice and puerile and just plain silly. We both giggled moronically all the way through.

Nicktor brought over a bottle of Chivas Regal he’d been given by someone from work. It’s 25 years old and expensive. It tasted amazing. Smooth and creamy, with hints of all sorts of spices and fruit. Not a whiskey to drink all night but one to sip and enjoy. Oddly the cork is very heavy.

As usual it was a late night but we retired having spent the usual lovely evening.

I managed to drag myself out of bed this morning and accompany Mirinda up to the station and then it was basically a day of study.

I had a couple of breaks. One to walk the poodles who both managed to have an FSI. The upside of this is that they are both now very soft and smell nice.

That’s it for now, though. I have been staring at this screen for far too long! To bed!

Is this the pillow I see before me? Oh, I sincerely hope so.

But just before I go…here’s todays flowers. Part of my fairy circle around the tree.

Frescias in the garden looking like fried eggs.

What a crowded train I was on at 9:30am on a Sunday morning! It was so bad that the guard announced that the first class carriages were available for anyone to sit in if they want, without the weekend supplemental charge. I’m thankful I do not have a first class season ticket. There are a LOT of children. The reason? The London Marathon was on today and they’ve all come to gawp and cheer and wave things at the runners.

On my trip into town, I was sat next to a woman who didn’t understand why anyone would run 26 miles. Her friend agreed and said she couldn’t run down the street, let alone a marathon. They are going to cheer on the husband of one of them. These two were off to Canary Wharf so will take the Jubilee line. I was rather thankful that everyone else transferred to the Tube as well when we arrived at Waterloo.

Well Macbeth was terrible. The staging was fine but Lady Macbeth was pathetic. Where was her power? Her control? The direction was sadly bad. Macbeth himself was indeed a puppet but he had no puppet master. And while he looked very buff and you believed he could really wield that big sword he had, he was awfully melodramatic. The witches were good, the one good joke was played very well and Banquo’s ghostly appearance at the banquet was excellent, but other than that, it was all a bit wasted. It’s such as good play but not when you play it so simply.

Lady Macbeth didn’t have any power. All those wonderful lines, thrown away. Because she didn’t bring any power to the part, the audience had no idea why she did what she did. In a play dominated by testosterone, she needs to be the all powerful figure. The audience should believe she could control any of the men. Sadly she was a tiny waif amid the raw sexual strength of the warlords. She was the worst thing. Such a waste of a delicious role.

Duncan was very good. Him I believed! When he arrived at Cawdor, he stood with silence and power, surveying everything, happy that all his generals were behind him. His assassination should be made more awful because he believes Macbeth is with him.

Over all, it was a great disappointment but I think that was because I know the play too well. The previous plays were new experiences but this one was way too well known. Interestingly, one of our party had never been to anything like it and was enthralled throughout. So, really, what do I know?

The most bizarre thing was the sheet with holes in it. The pit at the Globe is where the majority of the audience stands for £5. I’ve never understood how anyone can stand up for an entire Shakespeare play but there’s always a lot of them. Groundlings, they’re called. Generally they just peer up at the thrust of the stage, a sea of eager faces all muddled in together. But not for Macbeth.

Someone (the designer, the director, someone’s mum…I don’t know) saw an old painting of a production which had the audience poking their heads through a sheet. And so, liking this idea, it was replicated for this production. It was supposed to resemble a battlefield, full of decapitated heads, which it did. The funniest thing was when people looked down, leaving just a mass of hair sitting on the sheet like so much seaweed. Quite affective. It also provided an opportunity for characters to suddenly appear through the holes, writhing in agony, blood covering them. Also the witches could suddenly appear and vanish. It worked well but not quite enough to carry the rest of the play.

Anyway, we saw the play, ate our usual picnic in our gentleman’s box which, incidentally, was on the opposite side to where we usually are, then walked to a pub (or four) and drank too much beer. I caught a late train home, drunk. With lots of people, presumably left over from the London Marathon.
Had a lot of fun around Trafalgar Square pretending to be tourists. Sean and I climbed up by the lion’s mouth and Bev took our picture. That was fun! I caught a late train home, drunk. With lots of people, presumably left over from the London Marathon who weren’t drunk.

Audience poke their heads through at the Globe

I finished my first essay today and submitted it. I now have three to go.

Tonight we went for dinner for Mirinda’s birthday. As usual the food was fantastic. My main meal was, quite frankly, amazing. It was pork belly, which is always lovely, on a bed of cabbage with a lovely light sauce. That is not particularly odd.

However, on the left hand side of the plate was a Scotch egg with a slice of bacon leaning against it, in a small pool of tomato sauce. But this was not any normal Scotch egg! Rather than the usual pork mince, inside was black pudding and instead of a chicken egg, in the very middle was a pigeon’s egg.

It was delicious though the combination of the two dishes was a bit odd. So I ate one then I ate the other. I couldn’t see myself mixing tomato sauce with the pork belly. Never gonna happen.

Dessert, again, was interesting. It was Bakewell tart with clotted cream. If you’d never had a Bakewell tart, it was lovely. Beautifully made and delicious to eat. However, it wasn’t like a Bakewell tart. Mirinda had a mango tart thing which she said was fantastic.

Tomorrow I’m off to the Globe with the weasels to see Macbeth.

In LaPIS today, we had a guest lecturer who is presently ‘doing’ her PHd. Each week we have a different person, giving us a different view on the Information Sciences.

We’ve had a woman who carries a load of donated books around the world, sets herself up anywhere she wants and says she’s a library.

We’ve had a girl who works for a publishing house who was so soft, I still couldn’t tell you what she talked about.

We’ve had Frank Webster who was absolutely brilliant. He put me on to a couple of authors who are fantastic. He’s a sociologist.

Today was the second last LaPIS class (the rest of uni is now finished but because of Easter, and specifically Good Friday, we have another week to go for this module). Today’s guest speaker told us about how the slow movement can be applied to information or, rather, should it.

The Slow Movement started in Italy. This guy was sick of Fast Food so he set about starting a revolution. It’s not just the idea of cooking from scratch – the opposite of Fast Food – but also creating the food for yourself in the first place. It’s about being a huge part of nature, taking it slow and becoming one with it. Anyway, it’s very famous and has been applied to other areas of life such as business.

This woman’s thesis is that we are, in the Information Society, a bunch of Infomaniacs and wouldn’t it be better if we were Infodiverse. Some of what she said made sense but a lot was a bit rubbish. It was like she’d struck on a good idea for her doctorate but then it didn’t really go anywhere so she twaddled around and came up with the stuff we saw today. Anyway, it was entertaining enough. She had Maria convinced.

Afterwards we had a half hour talk about an article that the lecturer had read lately. Bit of a waste of time, if you ask me, although Mirinda claims that’s what they all do. I guess in a way, they do, but it’s not usually ONE article they talk about.

Then to Waterloo, meet Mirinda and come home.

In keeping with recent blog entries, I’ve included another tulip photo.

Gary was very annoyed when he realised the poodles had snapped off his prize tulip!

Not much happened today. I didn’t even go into Farnham. I did manage to leave the house for an hour and a half when I took the puppies to the park but otherwise I was tied to my desk!

I managed to get the most boring part of my second essay almost complete. Though I made a few pleasant diversions by cleaning the bathroom, burning the rubbish and doing all the washing as little breaks through the day.

Still, though dreary to the extreme, I think I’ve broken the back of this one and just waiting for a book to arrive for a citation for the first one. Things are looking better. I will have Monday and Tuesday to complete them both.

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One of our patches of tulips has sprouted one single flower. Although there’s about 12 in the patch. It looks a bit weird among the green foliage. The colour in this photo is a long way off correct. It’s actually a darker red with a yellow fringe around it.

Smallest tulip in the garden

Claire reminded me of a story on Breakfast the other day. Someone was having a moan about mobility scooters as there are thousands over here. Councils have fleets of them for anyone who needs (wants) to use one for their shopping. Free of charge!

There’s one guy in Farnham who walks his dog in the park while sat on his! So, actually, it’s the dog that walks while he sits all the way round the park. He has these big, fat tyres, which I presume are off-road tyres for four wheel drive scooters.

Anyway, someone was having a moan and they had lots of emails from people saying how liberating they were for those that have problems walking. They also had heaps from people who had been run over, pushed aside, tooted at or just plain frustrated by mobility riders. It was obviously a pretty slow news day!

And then, the very next day, they had a story about a red mobility scooter display team. Sort of like the Red Arrows but much, MUCH slower. It was hilarious. They did this amazing figure eight routine at about 1 mile an hour and even then nearly collided during the crossover. There was ten of them and they were all in fits of laughter throughout the whole piece.

After that I just can’t take them very seriously.