(no subject)
Wow. It has been a while since last update.
Pre-Decalogy period is now a bit of a blur. Recollections:
Main thing though was going back to Highgate for my housemaster's retirement bash, held in what used to be School House, the boarding house, now gutted and transformed into a state of the art design and arts facility and, even more outrageous: renamed the Mills Centre. Not to me it isn't. Really strange, walking around the place - needed to use things like windows and and beams to establish where we were compared with the original layout. Also just didn't feel right - too bright and clean. No more cold stone floors. And the school admits girls now!
Wonderful to see Humphrey and Elizabeth again. Nice to see that I finally managed to go an evening without calling him Sir once. Only took me a couple of decades or so. Great too to see a lot of the Old Boys although I was expecting a bigger turnout. Interesting how even the ones I disliked don't seem so bad now :-) Also learned from his younger brother that a guy who was a monitor when I first entered is now Deputy Attorney General for Pakistan. Given how scary he used to be, I can definitely see it: him sitting there and just glaring defendants into submission.
Lots of strange recollections too:
From the email flying around, looks like a new School House Yahoogroup is called for!
Decalogy stuff will follow. Short version: fun but a bit of a shambles from a personal organisation perspective.
Post-con, parents have gone home and house is awfully quiet once more. Just a lot tider now. Soon fix that...
Currently reading Fiasco, by Thomas E Ricks, about war in Iraq. A truely terrifying account of how it was botched from the start. The book hasn't even got to the start of the war yet but, nonetheless, I find it hard not to smirk at the news the I Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been sentenced to 30 months in prison because of the CIA leak affair.
And,lastly, a somewhat belated Happy Birthday to aeshna_uk!
Pre-Decalogy period is now a bit of a blur. Recollections:
- Not being so grumpy after all about missing Late May Bank Holiday muster given the weather.
- Meeting aeshna_uk for a drink and wondering why the pub was so crowded. Answer: Champions' League final. Doh! Still, decamping to a nearby restaurant for dinner wasn't exactly a hardship...
- Getting a lesson from my mother on sewing machine, use of
- Buying loads of sad shit off eBay e.g. Royal Saudi Air Force officers' cufflinks, CADPAT holster and brassard, Singaporean Army MP uniform (OK, so that was Yahoo auctions...), Malaysian army cammies etc
- Discovering my colleagues in the US face mandatory fingerprinting and drug testing from the client. A silly thought at the time "Q3. What are the differences between Colombian and Bolivian cocaine?" UK client people's reaction: surprise and shock at their North American counterparts ("You'll find we tend not to trample your civil liberties here")
Main thing though was going back to Highgate for my housemaster's retirement bash, held in what used to be School House, the boarding house, now gutted and transformed into a state of the art design and arts facility and, even more outrageous: renamed the Mills Centre. Not to me it isn't. Really strange, walking around the place - needed to use things like windows and and beams to establish where we were compared with the original layout. Also just didn't feel right - too bright and clean. No more cold stone floors. And the school admits girls now!
Wonderful to see Humphrey and Elizabeth again. Nice to see that I finally managed to go an evening without calling him Sir once. Only took me a couple of decades or so. Great too to see a lot of the Old Boys although I was expecting a bigger turnout. Interesting how even the ones I disliked don't seem so bad now :-) Also learned from his younger brother that a guy who was a monitor when I first entered is now Deputy Attorney General for Pakistan. Given how scary he used to be, I can definitely see it: him sitting there and just glaring defendants into submission.
Lots of strange recollections too:
- Elizabeth to Rubin: "You used to hang your... you know... out the window" Me: "Juniors?" Turned out she meant alcohol
- Rubin: "Clive Hammerson stole my alcohol and *I* got gated - that was *so* unfair!"
- Lot of us recalled Mike running into the dorm shouting "'Ere, there's two people having a shag in the car out there!", loads of teenage boys leaning out the window, screaming encouragement, lights coming on on the masters' side, Humphrey emerging and his au paire scrambling out of the car!
From the email flying around, looks like a new School House Yahoogroup is called for!
Decalogy stuff will follow. Short version: fun but a bit of a shambles from a personal organisation perspective.
Post-con, parents have gone home and house is awfully quiet once more. Just a lot tider now. Soon fix that...
- My employers have shipped me a new laptop as part of the integration/IT migration process. Good news: new laptop. Bad news: it's going to be a lot more tightly locked down than my current one. Sigh.
- Off to Upnor Castle in Kent this weekend for another muster. Hmm... pike or musket? :-)
- Rather liked the last 2-part Doctor Who. Great stuff, especially liked the points about how restoring the Doctor kills John Smith and that the Doctor has a tendency to get innocents killed just by his proximity
- Scary realisation: ~1.5 weeks before Malta!
Currently reading Fiasco, by Thomas E Ricks, about war in Iraq. A truely terrifying account of how it was botched from the start. The book hasn't even got to the start of the war yet but, nonetheless, I find it hard not to smirk at the news the I Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been sentenced to 30 months in prison because of the CIA leak affair.
And,lastly, a somewhat belated Happy Birthday to aeshna_uk!