Sunday 16th September
Greenwich Reach, Summer 2007
Saturday 15th September
- the inimitable Michael Bywater segues a farewell to George Melly into a lament for a lost London.
Read it and weep.
Friday 14th September
Hermitage Dock, Summer 2007
Thursday 13th September
I never knew Luciano Pavarotti
I certainly never met him, I'm fairly certain I never saw him perform; I'm not even certain I've ever heard him sing an entire song.
And yet...
I'm somehow expected to participate in a festival of global mourning in which everybody talks about his 'special gift' in hushed tones, and radio and television loudspeakers blare out bar after repetitive bar of Nessun Dorma, leaving the distinct impression that that was the only aria he knew.
Enough already.
Am I sorry that he's dead? Not really.
Am I glad? No, not that either.
(But it must be said: it leaves more room for the rest of us.)
Wednesday 12th September
Buckingham Palace, Winter 2007
Tuesday 11th September
For no good reason other than somebody, somewhere, (certainly not me), made a rather dangerous legal error when reporting a local election lately, our entire online staff have been subjected to a series of two-hour 'refresher' courses on media law.
Cushty, you might think. Two hours spent broadening your knowledge base rather than sitting at your desk.
Alas no: we work, each day, until the night's edition has been published. So two hours spent away from your desk means finishing another two hours further after midnight.
Plus, needless to bloody say, those of us not actually rostered to work that day are still obliged to slog across rush-hour London to attend, offered only some vague hint of future recompense 'on a case by case basis' which you know, and I know, means is code for 'we intend to forget about that just as soon as we possibly can'.
Not an total loss, however.
The trainer, a somewhat hyper-jovial fellow, over-doing the first-names by a country mile, showing subtle signs of being almost as jaded as we were, did allow himself to get tempted just enough off-track to philosophise about the perils of working for an international project, and how national characteristics displayed themselves in each team's attitude.
Including the French, he said, who sat silently through the final presentation and then delivered the stinging summary: "In practise this may work, but in theory it will not."
I rather liked that (not least because it aptly summarises some of the issues I'm having with current management practises at my current place of work.)
Monday 10th September
Isle of Dogs, Summer 2007
......previous week
