Arbeit

I think that I may have asked more of the office IT than it has to give.

Yesterday I worked from home; I didn’t get as much done as I should have liked, but part of the exercise was to test the remote connection and the working environment I need to create to be able to get anything done. I realised very quickly that short of sweeping either my or Furtle’s computer to the floor, there is not enough room in the study. Plus, ventilation up there is relatively poor and it was sweltering.

For yesterday at least, it was far too hot in the conservatory, though there will be days when it isn’t, so that was not a good working environment, though well ventilated and light. So: the kitchen, table, then.

The kitchen turns out to be pretty much ideal. Well lit, well ventilated, handy access to the kettle and the window behind me so I can’t gaze at the garden. Plus the kitchen table is the right height and there’s a strong wi-fi signal. So I logged on and there we are: first difficulty. Yes, I can map to the shared drives, but since the office reorganisation I am technically in a new division, so yes, I can map to the shared drives, just not the ones I need. I am breaking the system as I speak by transferring a couple of HUGE subdirectories to my personal drive.

It is taking…. Time.

I managed to get some actual work done, but I have to confess that it was not as much as I would have hoped. It didn’t take long for me to get annoyed with the small keyboard and then with the track thingy that laptops have instead of a proper mouse or trackball. Happily I was able to attach a larger keyboard wirelessly and, after finding that the wireless mouse wouldn’t work with it, was able, after a period of playing treasure hunt in the study, to find the travel mouse we have. It’s not as comfy as a normal sized mouse, but it is infinitely preferable to the pad.

I wasn’t impressed to see that the effect of having faster home wireless was compensated for by the sluggishness of the office servers and was disappointed that the daily slow down and halt around 16.00 transferred to the laptop too.

Anyway, all in all, a useful day. From Friday I hope to be able to crack on and get going properly. In the kitchen again, or if cooler, in the conservatory. Furtle will be starting a run of several consecutive night working shifts by then, so not being able to curse loudly in the study will be useful!

Firing up the cauldron

With all this palaver and mystery over precisely who is going to light the flame in the Olympic Cauldron on Friday, I hereby make my speculative guess.

There have been hints that it may not be an Olympian at all, though I understand that the bookies’ favourite is Sir Steve Redgrave – gold medallist at five consecutive Olympics. Bookies don’t get rich from being wrong very often, but then, it’s the number of bets placed, I believe, that determines a favourite, so I’m not sure what their attempts to cover their collective arses tells us.

There are a number of potential Olympians who could do the job; I saw Dr Sir Roger Bannister touted as a possibility. I have to admit I thought he’d died; he must be getting on a bit. In fact I just paused to look him up on Wikipedia and he is a spry–looking 83 year old, so why not?

All that aside, there have been hints, as I say, that it may not be an Olympian. We know they are going for spectacle in the opening ceremony and I suspect that it being London and all, the organisers will want to give it a British slant; the arena floor is reputedly being made to look like British countryside for the occasion, so a bit of flag-waving is sure to be included.

The two iconic media items linked with Britain are Harry Potter and James Bond 007. You could make a case, I guess, for Dr Who, but I think the two former have a more global presence than our favourite Time Lord.

So, Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson, in a wizard-themed event where they light the cauldron with their wands, perhaps?

Perhaps.

But. We know that Paul McCartney is playing at the opening ceremony and we know that he is going on late, possibly even last, which is when the flame will, presumably, be lit. Now as I say, they are looking for spectacle and the old bugger can still put on a show. My prediction, for what it’s worth is this:

Macca plays a short set of two or three numbers and as the finale goes into Live and Let Die. Traditionally when he plays this, there are thunderflashes on stage times to go off when the drummer hits the beat on ‘die’. That’s when I’d have the thunderflashes go off around the stadium and have James Bond himself, Daniel Craig in character light the cauldron.

Of course, it’s probably something completely different. I like my version, though. It would be spectacular.