Wednesday, September 10, 2008
A dream with four chapters
Chapter 1. I think I am with a mixed group of colleagues from OPCS, a gang for whom I used to work in the distant past. We are wandering about in some very remote part of the country, like Skye but for some reason I know it is not Skye. We come across a rather dowdy collection of huts. Half cylinder, corrugated iron, second world war barrack hut sort of thing. Reminded of an old naval site near Alverstoke near Gosport near Portsmouth. We go into one of the huts.
Chapter 2. We find ourselves in a rather crowded and untidy office with lots of new books packed onto shelves. A find we think. These offices have been abandoned and we can browse on the books. Enter efficient, business suit dressed lady librarian. This is my office. No browsing here if you please. Follow me.
Chapter 3. We find ourselves in a very large room with a very high vaulted wooden ceiling. An island in the middle where all the staff, catalogues and what have you live. Lots of books around the very large room. All most impressive.
Chapter 4. Cut to small and untidy hotel room. I am by myself. Feverishly trying to write a novel on the back of paper which has been scribbled or printed on one side. I seem to have a lot of it.
Maybe the chap who said, and about whom I have complained in the past, that dreams were just the scraps and refuse of the day's mind work, had a point. Can't see any cause or thread in this lot. But it was quite important at the time.
Yesterday to London to learn all about the Tunguska event at the RAS (http://www.ras.org.uk/). Not a bad lecture, although the content a bit thin for my taste. I was also reminded how easily I start to nod off when at any kind of lecture or training course where one is required to sit still in receive mode for more than about 15 minutes. The ease does not seem to have all that much to do with the quality of the lecture. But it was interesting to learn how much one can learn about a UFO which exploded above Siberia from the record of the damage done to trees. All one does it construct a model of how the UFO works, run the model to get it to say what happened to the trees and then compare that with what actually happened to the trees. Wonderful things computers.
In the margins, bought some bread from Fortnum and Masons. A large bloomer - rye with carraway seeds, regular white bloomer not being possible in such a posh establishment - cost about twice what a regular white bloomer would have cost me in Cheam. Inspecting it from a Green Park bench, not too impressed. Smelt like something from Mr S and looked like something which has been steamed (after the fashion of the ABC, formerly in a large factory near Kentish Town somewhere) rather than baked. But it tasted a lot better than it looked or smelt. Fresh, good texture and the taste nicely livened up by the carraway seeds. And what was left of it, sliced thin, made very good toast this morning. A noticeable number of vagrants in the park. And one whippet which made a dash for a grey squirrel. Some male passers by looked very disappointed when the whippet was called off by his or her female owner. Maybe they had a bet on whether the squirrel would make it to a tree or not. My bet was that it wouldn't have.
But today, just to be on the safe side got a bloomer from Cheam. And it was my lucky day as I was able to get a nicely cooked one without flour or seeds. Far and away the best sort. Nice bit of sirloin steak and we had hot meat sandwiches for lunch. Then our regular lentil soup with bread for dinner. Good stuff. Slightly wetter than usual but none the worse for that given the bread to dip into it. Interesting factlet on the carrots. They were organic from Mr S and I took a chance on what they had been washed in (perhaps it is the inorganic ones that get washed in some nasty disinfectant. See large machine from New Zealand plugged somewhere above) and did not peel them before I chunked them crosswise. Not being peeled seemed to mean that when cooked they had a much better texture than the peeled sort would have had. More entire, more like one was eating a root rather than a chunk of anonymous sweet orange gear.
Chapter 2. We find ourselves in a rather crowded and untidy office with lots of new books packed onto shelves. A find we think. These offices have been abandoned and we can browse on the books. Enter efficient, business suit dressed lady librarian. This is my office. No browsing here if you please. Follow me.
Chapter 3. We find ourselves in a very large room with a very high vaulted wooden ceiling. An island in the middle where all the staff, catalogues and what have you live. Lots of books around the very large room. All most impressive.
Chapter 4. Cut to small and untidy hotel room. I am by myself. Feverishly trying to write a novel on the back of paper which has been scribbled or printed on one side. I seem to have a lot of it.
Maybe the chap who said, and about whom I have complained in the past, that dreams were just the scraps and refuse of the day's mind work, had a point. Can't see any cause or thread in this lot. But it was quite important at the time.
Yesterday to London to learn all about the Tunguska event at the RAS (http://www.ras.org.uk/). Not a bad lecture, although the content a bit thin for my taste. I was also reminded how easily I start to nod off when at any kind of lecture or training course where one is required to sit still in receive mode for more than about 15 minutes. The ease does not seem to have all that much to do with the quality of the lecture. But it was interesting to learn how much one can learn about a UFO which exploded above Siberia from the record of the damage done to trees. All one does it construct a model of how the UFO works, run the model to get it to say what happened to the trees and then compare that with what actually happened to the trees. Wonderful things computers.
In the margins, bought some bread from Fortnum and Masons. A large bloomer - rye with carraway seeds, regular white bloomer not being possible in such a posh establishment - cost about twice what a regular white bloomer would have cost me in Cheam. Inspecting it from a Green Park bench, not too impressed. Smelt like something from Mr S and looked like something which has been steamed (after the fashion of the ABC, formerly in a large factory near Kentish Town somewhere) rather than baked. But it tasted a lot better than it looked or smelt. Fresh, good texture and the taste nicely livened up by the carraway seeds. And what was left of it, sliced thin, made very good toast this morning. A noticeable number of vagrants in the park. And one whippet which made a dash for a grey squirrel. Some male passers by looked very disappointed when the whippet was called off by his or her female owner. Maybe they had a bet on whether the squirrel would make it to a tree or not. My bet was that it wouldn't have.
But today, just to be on the safe side got a bloomer from Cheam. And it was my lucky day as I was able to get a nicely cooked one without flour or seeds. Far and away the best sort. Nice bit of sirloin steak and we had hot meat sandwiches for lunch. Then our regular lentil soup with bread for dinner. Good stuff. Slightly wetter than usual but none the worse for that given the bread to dip into it. Interesting factlet on the carrots. They were organic from Mr S and I took a chance on what they had been washed in (perhaps it is the inorganic ones that get washed in some nasty disinfectant. See large machine from New Zealand plugged somewhere above) and did not peel them before I chunked them crosswise. Not being peeled seemed to mean that when cooked they had a much better texture than the peeled sort would have had. More entire, more like one was eating a root rather than a chunk of anonymous sweet orange gear.
# posted by Jim @ 1:44 PM 
