The Four Horsemen
… by which, I am referring to the four giant effigies being carried to the Bank of England later today by the G20 Summit protestors. It promises to be an interesting day, here in the City, although I’ve got nothing much to report so far. The streets were a lot quieter this morning, as many City staff have either taken the day off or been told to work from home. Those like me, unlucky enough to be allowed this, have at least been told to dress down all week - quite a big thing, at a workplace as up-tight as this one. And I mean properly dressing down this time, not any of this ‘smart casual’ crap. Not having to iron formal shirts for the last week has been heavenly!
A few offices and shops have boarded up their windows, in preparation for the marches later today. We’ve not gone as far as that, although extra security staff have been laid on and the plasma screens in the lobby have been temporarily removed.
Dreams
On an entirely (I think) different topic, I’ve been having very vivid dreams recently. One, earlier this week, was fairly typical of mine, where I was in a huge, shabby and overly complex train station, urgently trying to get to somewhere important, and being confused by several dozen platforms identified by six-digit hexadecimal codes, and juggling pages of incomprehensible e-tickets that had to be validated by machines which didn’t work properly, so that I could find out the code of my train.
The night before last, I dreamt that Lande and I were sitting in the middle of a forest, with a man who claimed to be from two hundred years in the future. He gave us each an antique wristwatch; mine looked like a sphere of dirty glass attached to a leather wrist strap, and I could see a complex system of gears moving inside it, but couldn’t figure out how it actually displayed the time. The man from the future told me to seek out the old woman who had made it, then decided it was time he went back to his own century, and we helped him build a bonfire and incinerate any evidence of him being in 2009. I located the house where the old watch-making woman lived but, by this time, my watch had morphed into a model of a cruise ship, made from yellowed transparent plastic, and still containing a complex mass of moving clockwork parts. The old woman looked at it for me, and showed me where a hidden clock face was located on the bottom of its hull and then, for twenty pence, sold me a spare gear wheel, which apparently was prone to wearing out often on a model cruise ship like this one. I took the spare wheel, thanked her, and left.
A few offices and shops have boarded up their windows, in preparation for the marches later today. We’ve not gone as far as that, although extra security staff have been laid on and the plasma screens in the lobby have been temporarily removed.
Dreams
On an entirely (I think) different topic, I’ve been having very vivid dreams recently. One, earlier this week, was fairly typical of mine, where I was in a huge, shabby and overly complex train station, urgently trying to get to somewhere important, and being confused by several dozen platforms identified by six-digit hexadecimal codes, and juggling pages of incomprehensible e-tickets that had to be validated by machines which didn’t work properly, so that I could find out the code of my train.
The night before last, I dreamt that Lande and I were sitting in the middle of a forest, with a man who claimed to be from two hundred years in the future. He gave us each an antique wristwatch; mine looked like a sphere of dirty glass attached to a leather wrist strap, and I could see a complex system of gears moving inside it, but couldn’t figure out how it actually displayed the time. The man from the future told me to seek out the old woman who had made it, then decided it was time he went back to his own century, and we helped him build a bonfire and incinerate any evidence of him being in 2009. I located the house where the old watch-making woman lived but, by this time, my watch had morphed into a model of a cruise ship, made from yellowed transparent plastic, and still containing a complex mass of moving clockwork parts. The old woman looked at it for me, and showed me where a hidden clock face was located on the bottom of its hull and then, for twenty pence, sold me a spare gear wheel, which apparently was prone to wearing out often on a model cruise ship like this one. I took the spare wheel, thanked her, and left.