The House Husband

I’ve been told to stop doing such detailed and well researched work! Well, maybe not quite as harshly as that. Ailsa wants the oil paintings finished by the beginning of March so I’m having to update the merest of bits of the records. Like, the artist, the measurements and the date. Instead of spending up to an hour on a record, I am now getting them completed in about five minutes! Nick assures me I can come back and finish them properly when I’ve completed the list. I hope so! I miss the research.

I emailed Mirinda early in the day to find out whether we’d be travelling home together. She had a meeting but said she’d like to. This meant I had some time to kill so I decided to have a wander around the museum.

Apart from the odd ten minute forays after lunch, I’ve not really had a good look around apart from the day I went up for the special initiation into the ways of the SciMu Volunteer. So, I decided to start on level 5 and work my down. (5 is the top.)

I particularly liked level 5. it was the history of medicine, using lots of pieces from the Wellcome Collection. The history of the Wellcome Collection and the Science Museum is here. However, if you’d like to read about the actual Wellcome Museum at Euston, that is here. I might go there next Wednesday.

In a continuation of the medical theme (after Wednesday’s anatomy lesson with Dr Hunter) it seemed ideal. I wandered around the display cases, amazed at some of the incredible stuff. It starts with the Egyptians and even has an unwrapped mummified head! Here it is:

An unwrapped mummified head - wicked!

A little further around, passing the Greeks and the Romans and their nasty little implements of medical duress, I found a St Sebastian! Unbelievable. It was in a section concerning the mediaeval belief in saintly intervention. Lots of examples of saint, including my very own St Sebastian. He didn’t look too well, I have to say but he was there, willing to cure anyone with plague who happened along. The only way I could get a photo was from above, so the angle is a bit weird but I think it brings out the colour in his cheeks more.

A very unexpected St Sebastian

You’ll have to ignore the reflections as he’s (obviously) in a case and the light bounces all over the place and I refuse to use a flash in museums, particularly with organic subjects. Anyway, it’s clear enough to see the arrows and his splendidly wavy hair. Gotta love him.

Of course there was lots of great quackery as well. The whole phrenology thing which took a very tight grip on Victorian England and beyond was well represented with, what was described as , ‘a box of phrenology heads’. I don’t know but that struck me as kind of funny. It was impossible to get the entire box in – it was very big with a LOT of little heads in it – but this shot may give you an idea.

Part of a box of phrenology heads

Actually, now I’m looking closely at it, I wish I’d blipped this shot today. I didn’t mind the one I did send (using my phone from work) but this one would have been much more bizarre. I might do it again and then blip it. Keep it to yourself. I don’t want Dawn to know that I’ve pre-scouted a blip.

Well, after a quick shot of a poster about gout showing a vile little creature, all claws and fangs, getting stuck into someone’s foot which I took with my phone and sent off to Nicktor, I left for my rendezvous amid the extreme sport called ‘train catching on a Friday night at Waterloo’.

Today was the deathday of Pompeo Girolamo Batoni (or Battoni, depending on where you research it), a Tuscan painter born in 1708. He painted a lot of tourist pictures during the Grand Tour days. The ones with the person sitting (or standing rather nobly) in front of historical ruins. Like tourist photographs of today. I know because I researched him today.

Coincidentally, there is an exhibition of his work at the National Gallery at the moment, so I may pop along next Wednesday. Here’s one of his portraits:

by Pompeo Batoni

And talking about things I’ve researched; I came across the digital version of a rather interesting statue this week that lives at the Science Museum. I’m reminded of it because the gout has made a bit of a reappearance today. I shared this with Nicktor as I know he’s the only person who would sympathise.

Anyway, this statue…it shows how vindictive people can be when they DON’T suffer from gout. I downloaded an image of it from work. Just have a close look at it.

The family who suffers together...laughs together

Now, apart from it being a wonderful piece of sculpture, just take a good look at the wife’s face. She is clearly enjoying his discomfort. She is looking directly at us, as if to say “Gout? Ha! Just let me show him” just before she squeezes the foot she holds in her hand.

Now look at him. He is in agony. An unfair and unjust agony brought on merely because he likes a drink and a haunch of venison with his port and brandy. But he is howling in agony BEFORE she has squeezed his foot. She is merely holding it. Oh, gout, how lethal is your sting!

Never mind the kid. He’s obviously looking at his father, asking when he can start drinking, like all sons to their fathers.

The sculpture was made by Meissen in Germany, one of the first companies to produce porcelain. I think it’s quite lovely but the subject is somewhat not!

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On Breakfast this morning I heard something quite awful. It was announced that Fuller’s Brewery will NOT be selling London Pride at the 2012 games in London because Heineken have the exclusive beer selling rights for the entire games. Now, quite apart from the fact that Heineken is tasteless and possibly second last on a long list of nice beers (Foster’s, clearly being last) and ignoring the fact that it is a Dutch beer and not British, I have to ask why? Why is it exclusive? Why do the Olympic committee assume everyone likes tasteless fizzy water? Can there be no choice? Why not half and half?

At the cricket you get both (or either) lager and real beer. It’s not that difficult.

However, that’s not really what bothers me most. Heineken is Dutch. It isn’t the Amsterdam Olympics. It’s the London Olympics. London Pride is a London thing (according to the posters) and a jolly good beer. WHY? I really think it’s rather sad that obviously money is more important than flavour. I wonder what they served at the Sydney Olympics. Budweiser, perhaps. Or Kingfisher.

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Oh, and I found out about the weird totem pole in Farnham Park. The one I talked about here. It is one part of a pair of sculptures by local artist, Ruth Wheeler, park volunteers and a bunch of local kids from three schools. The trunks are from a tree which was cut down in 2009 (it was in danger of falling over and killing someone). Ruth has carved feathers into the wood and the inside has been purposely scorched to give a contrast to the light timber. The holes are naturally formed by woodpeckers bashing their beaks into it when it was alive. There is another sculpture (I assume looking the same if not similar) near the main entrance to the park.

A pity it doesn’t have some sort of pagan significance.

Harlow. What a place. One of the outlying suburbs dreamed up by Sir Frederick Gibberd way back in 1947. It is one of the famous ‘New Towns’, designed to help ease the housing pressure on London after the War. Typical of these sort of places, the station is nowhere near the high street, which is annoying. A pub, masquerading as a carvery is close to the station though, which gives it something, I suppose. Otherwise, it’s all tall buildings, spread out like every business park in the country.

The train was pleasant enough – about half an hour from Liverpool Street aboard the Stansted Express – albeit full of suitcases and foreign languages but leaving the train and stepping out into the bus stop which doubles for the station forecourt, is not.

I’m wondering how it was supposed to work. The workers, encouraged to live outside Central London, arrive home and spread out in all directions, but there is no life. Visions of hordes of bowler hatted, briefcase and umbrella wielding, middle class, white collar workers streaming out at the end of each day and streaming back in the next morning, reminiscent of Reginald Perrin, spring to mind.

A station needs to connect with a town. It can’t always be in the centre because some places are so old it’s just not possible or because landowners refused to sell their land when the rail initially came through (Woking is an excellent example of this), but when a town is built specifically for commuters, one would think the station would be close to a few amenities.

The thing is, you can’t see anything but anonymous businesses from Harlow Town station. There is a massive town park but even that appears to be well outside the town and cut off from the station by a busy road. I’m sure there’s a nice bit of Harlow, but the casual visitor is not likely to see it.

Apparently there is an Old Harlow, which is, obviously, the original town but, as far as I’m aware, we were nowhere near that.

And why, you may ask, am I talking about Harlow. Or, rather, why the hell I went to Harlow in the first place. It was nothing to do with me, is all I can say. A certain person had a Wednesday meeting in Harlow and, as I didn’t want to miss out on our usual lunch, I found myself sitting in the pub masquerading as a carvery for an hour and a half working on my dissertation and writing this blog entry.

Actually the pub masquerading as a carvery was very pleasant – it didn’t actually have a name so I can only call it the pub masquerading as a carvery. While it only had two ales on tap, one was London Pride which is always a reasonable fallback option. And it kept raining on and off which makes it quite pleasant as well. It actually reminded me of the Wheatsheaf in Woking but I think that was the décor because it’s about four times the size.

After two hours and three pints and the excellent service given by Damien, I was joined by Mirinda and we had an unexpected lunch of a cheese dominated ploughman. I say unexpected because we actually ordered something else. Never mind! It was very nice with lots of salad.

The excitement of the day was provided by the Stansted Express. As we sat and the tea boy faffed around making us tea and coffee, smoke started rising from the air vent that runs along the bottom of the carriage wall. Mirinda thought that the German girls sitting in front of us had somehow overheated their laptop. It was very smelly but it settled down and the tea boy went on his way and we settled back to ‘enjoy’ our beverages.

Suddenly all hell broke loose as sparks started flashing out of the grill, forcing the two German girls to leap from their seats. Mirinda wasn’t far behind them and quickly headed off in search of the guard while I stayed with the German girls, ready to save them if required.

Returning shortly, Mirinda headed in the opposite direction, saying she’d found the end of the train. While we waited, the problem seemed to have gone away when suddenly there was a loud crackling, a huge burst of flames and smoke poured forth once more, filling the carriage. The German girls squealed and one ran off into the first class carriage while the other one bravely stood with me and watched.

Eventually Mirinda returned to say the only person she’d found with any authority (and he didn’t have any) was the tea boy. Apparently she’d reached the driver’s door and asked him to knock on it to tell the driver the train was on fire. The tea boy said he wasn’t allowed so Mirinda pounded on it to no avail. They then both yelled at the door a bit. With the same lack of a result.

I watched a news story on breakfast a while ago, claiming that London Underground was thinking of introducing driver-less trains and the unions were up in arms, mainly because it would mean job cuts. Mirinda thinks this train maybe had no driver which would explain why he didn’t respond. I think it was because the driver was asleep, concentrating on his Sudoku or deaf. Whatever, this would be a much better reason for retaining staff on trains: To put out fires and act in emergencies.

The train arrived at Tottenham Hale in a few minutes and we escaped. I’m not sure what happened to the German girls but the chap in first class, who briefly lifted his black eye shade to enquire what was happening, remained seated disregarding the smoke all round him. I assume he just replaced the eye shade and tutted something derisive about economy class before dozing back off.

The train, not content with just smoking, left the station and continued on to Liverpool Street without us. We caught the next train to Stratford which, as it happens, is quicker and connects with both the Dockland Light Railway and the Jubilee line, both of which stop at Canary Wharf.

Somewhat frazzled from a day of two extremes, I arrived at Waterloo in time to catch the 4:30 home to Farnham, hopefully to see Nicktor, his fresh bout of gout allowing. I hope the interview was worth it and I never see Harlow again.

At the moment, I’m looking out the study window and the sun is bathing the back garden in early evening rays and the sky is blue with a few fluffy clouds. It hasn’t been like that all day, however. Since 8 this morning, 3mm of rain has fallen in the garden. There’s been lots of intermittent showers. The sort that waits for me to go outside before pouring down. I feel like The Rain God from Hitch-hikers!

I talked to mum and dad on the phone and it started, lightly. Tiny drops barely wetting the ground. And then it stopped. After talking for about an hour I readied myself and set out to Farnham for the shopping. Fortunately I wore my raincoat. Halfway along the path, it fell. Sheets of light rain streaming in at an angle. By the time I arrived at castle Street I was nice and wet…and it stopped.

I had my Starbucks and popped into Waitrose as the sun shone from between bruised clouds. I then wandered down to Smith’s so I could buy a wedding acceptance for Stevie & Lara’s wedding. Shopping done and decidedly non-waterproof bag full, I started back for home.

As I reached the park the rain started again. Needless to say my raincoat had dried out. My shopping bag quickly soaked up enough water to double its weight as I walked, stopping under occasional trees that served as leaky umbrellas and brief respites from the drenching.

As I reached the top of our street, the rain stopped and the sun burst out. As usual, the poodles had been standing outside and were subsequently as wet as my shopping. Fortunately yesterdays haircuts meant they dried in about 10 minutes.

I then sat and worked on a report for Mirinda and some stuff for my dissertation. The weather seemed unsettled but the rain held off. At 2pm I took the poodles to the vet. Halfway along the alley the rain started again. And I was wet again.

After the vet I took them for a run in the park just in time for the skies to clear and for the sun to beam down as if it had never been gone. And the afternoon continued like this, the rain not returning. I’m sure the garden enjoyed it. I know I didn’t.

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There shall be no Nicktor night this week as he has suddenly developed gout! Poor sod. I have given him the advice that I am more than qualified to give and he is presently lying, prostrate on his lounge, foot up and unfettered as he drinks gallons of water. Bet he’s driving Dawn insane.

Back to school I hobbled. The trouble with gout…well, apart from the actual gout…is the fact that, in order to walk, you have to hobble on the outside of the affected foot. Once the gouty bit eases off, your entire foot aches because of the odd way you’ve been walking. And so, I hobbled to uni with a foot that is sore all over. Still, it’s not as bad as the gout!

Todays first class was about Digital Libraries. Actually, the whole second half of the semester is about them. I missed last week (when I was sick) so I had a quick catch-up on the train. I’d downloaded the notes to my trusty netbook and tried to stay awake reading them. God, I love my netbook. I call her Nettles.

So we listened to Andy as he explained the intricacies of creating and maintaining DLs (as he calls Digital Libraries) and then, after the break mid-class, we huddled in our groups to prepare for the tutorial. Our group is very small. It’s not actually really small but a lot of them weren’t there. Compared to the other three groups, we were minute!

After chatting about all manner of DL stuff, we started discussing who would get up and give the tutorial. Alison said she had the flu so she couldn’t. Maria stated that she’d been dumped on Friday and had been crying all weekend, so she couldn’t. I decided to offer my gout into the mix. Fortunately, Alice was happy to present. She did an admirable, if somewhat rushed, job. Rushed because the other groups had gone over their ten minute time limit, leaving her zero minutes.

Interestingly, Maria was dumped by text. I thought this was just an urban myth. Apparently not. Poor thing. I was dying to ask her what she texted back but she was on the other side of the group and I didn’t want to open any wounds that may have still been tender. For next weeks tutorial, we’ve been paired up so maybe I’ll ask her then.

After lunch in the park – it was a lovely day – I trotted off (slowly) to a far from exciting lecture on indexing and tagging. It was every bit as dull as it sounds. Still, it’s one of those things I HAVE to know. I hadn’t realised that I already knew. A few people took advantage of the mid-class break to escape. I wish I’d been as fleet of foot. Damn gout, defeats me again.

The second half of the class was an exercise. We had to index an article or four. The classroom was very warm. I was getting very tired. The class ended just in time.

I chatted to Mirinda on my journey back to Waterloo. She’d been out looking at flats today and had a lot to tell me. The bus ride was very quickly over. The dogs went insane when I arrived home. Actually, they’re still going insane. They keep hearing something out the back. I’m not letting them go out and bark.

And then, at 7:45, while I was talking to Mirinda on the phone, there was a knock at the door. I thought it was a neighbour come to complain about the girls being too noisy. Standing before me were two clean cut chaps with laminated badges on. I asked what they wanted.

“Good evening, sir,” One started. “We’ve come to give you a message.”

Then I read the badges. The Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints. I was very tempted to ask them which saints were the latter ones. Was the cut off St Joan, perhaps? Later? Earlier? I actually really wondered. I think I’ll have to google it because I just said I wasn’t in the least bit interested and shut the door.

Can you believe it? 7:45 at night! A message? I have a message for them. And it isn’t from some mythical spirit creature and some selected heavenly host, either.

Just to prove it was a lovely day, I took this at lunchtime at uni. This is the main building. Isn’t it ugly?

Lunch outside uni

So, Claire commented yesterday that I knew how to enjoy myself. Well, sadly, it appears I know how to enjoy myself way too much! Today was a bout of gout day. I have been in agony. I’m fine now I’m at home, sitting down with nothing on my foot, but today…aghhhhhhhh!

I had uni so I set off at 8:30 for the train. By the time I reached the end of our street, I was starting to limp, feeling the pressure beginning to build. I was tempted to turn around, go back home, just put my foot up (or take a jigsaw to it) but I missed the previous class because I was sick and I’d organised a meeting with my dissertation supervisor…I really had to go. I dragged my sorry foot to the station.

I was walking pretty slowly by the time I reached Farnham Station, but I made the train. I made the mistake of taking my shoe off for the trip to Waterloo. It felt good while we chuffed along, but when I replaced it, the foot hurt a lot more. Anyway, I hobbled down to the temporary bus stop for the bus to uni (someone has dug the main road up all over the place, including Waterloo Bridge, and the traffic is a mess) which, fortunately came quickly.

I slowly limped to uni (it’s pretty close to the bus stop), bought a coffee and went to class. And my foot throbbed all the way through it. And it was a load of old toss! I could so easily have missed it. I’m pretty sure today has been the worst lecture I’ve had. Of course, this could really be my gout talking.

It was about different generations (baby boomers, generation x, generation y…) and how libraries could or should adapt to them. Quite apart from the gout, I’m pretty sure there is no divide. Teenagers have always been grotty little misery laden trolls. Oldies have always been oldies. Middies have…well, you get the picture. I made the point in class that this was all bollocks, if you want to cater to different people, try catering to their needs! If I need to access a certain book because I’m studying library science, it doesn’t make any difference to anyone that I was born in 1955.

God, I was furious! Though to be fair, that probably WAS the gout. But it was like astrology. Just rubbish. So, I sat through it, took few notes and wished I was reclining somewhere with my foot in the air.

After class, I had an hour wait before my meeting with Andy (my supervisor). He’d told me to meet him in his office in E304. I went to E304. He wasn’t there. I was about to go home when I realised he was dyslexic. I found him in A304.

We had an excellent meeting (making me not regret quite as much, wasting my time n the morning). He is very positive and encouraging. I feel like I know what I’m doing, though I’ve set myself a rather mammoth task. Still, no pain, no gain, eh?

And then it was the long haul back home. Mirinda said she’d probably be getting home a lot later than me so I staggered onto the 3:23, just before the doors closed. I texted Mirinda to say which train I was on. Half an hour later she responded by saying she was on the train behind me. I waited at the station and we walked – actually, she walked, I sort of slithered like a sick penguin – home together.