Sunday, June 07, 2009
Powerpoint dreams
Two powerpoint flavoured dreams last night. Part of the trigger may have been remembering about a Presentations horse racing flavoured presentation that I once did, including some then state-of-the-art clip art horses, before going to sleep last night. Small prize for anyone who can still remember what Presentations is or was. Last heard of owned by a company with a reflective yellow glass building on the Western Avenue of the capital of one of our former colonies.
The first dream concerned a visit to the house of a friend. Great sprawling place, full of animals, bedding, small children, all kinds of stuff. It seems that I had elected myself coordinator of a four part presentation of which I was actually in the lead for one part. So I was going to knock up the whole thing and the others could fit their material into my framework. Clear echoes here of my waking self which likes to be in charge. The catch was there was no time and I knew next to nothing about any of the four parts. The other catch was finding time and space to actually put in the quality time needed to make progress, and failing completely. Animals and children climbing all over the laptop. No table to work on. Strange people popping in and out of bedding.
In the second dream, core problem the same in that I had to prepare or give a presentation. I was staying in a newish tower block hotel in somewhere I did not recognise but knew to be Rome. The hotel was next to another tower block and for some reason, in order to get to the hotel, you had to get to this second tower block, go up many floors in the lift and get out at the ground floor before crossing the piazza to the hotel. Space clearly a bit warped. On entry, I find myself with someone else with powerpoint problems and he thought he needed to try the thing out on the receptionist's laptop. To see if it would get past the sentry software. Quite irrationally, I was thinking that I would not let A. N Other salesman load his powerpoint onto my laptop. It might start sending my email back to his headquarters. Receptionists ought to have blank laptops they use for such purposes. Moving on, my hotel room included a large balcony on which people were having breakfast but which I found rather cold in my dressing gown, despite the interesting view down to the town.
The town itself specialised in shops which opened onto escalators so that you could do your shopping while going up and down. A lot of cigar shops of this sort. This second dream seems rather incoherent now, but maybe the lead idea was height rather than powerpoint.
Last week to Borough Market, once a regular vegetable market serving that part of London, and now a den of foodies, home on this occasion to an event called 'Taste of Spain'. On the way called in at Southwark Cathedral. We learn that as well as being the most notable gothic church in central London - most of the rest having burned down in the fire of London - that the nave had been more or less completely rebuilt towards the end of the 19th century, the place having fallen into disrepair. Now despite the whole place being in very good condition, I had not noticed that the nave was any differant from the chancel. It seems that they went to a lot of bother to get the two to match. What I did notice was rather clumsy looking reinforcing stone behind the slender columns of the triforium. But not introduced by the Victorian rebuilders; the same feature figured at both ends. Lots of intriguing funerary monuments. A very droll effigy of a sucessful pill manufacturer. A very strange monument to some family which wanted to flaunt an agricultural connection. Complete with ladies with rakes and scythes. Bundles of wheat. Lots of gilding. Whole thing looked a bit pagan to me, temple to Ceres sort of thing. Interesting mix of stained glass with some of the modern stuff working well. The stuff in the north transept working particularly well. Properly worked into to the texture of the tracery.
The 'Taste of Spain' seemed to be more cookery demonstration and grocery than the snackery I had been expecting, although there was some of that. Acquired an excellent small sausage of the salami variety. About a foot long, rather flat and covered in flour. Animal product skin and ate well both hot and cold. Hot in an Epsom paella mainly made with rice and smoked haddock. Bit of butter fried onion, pounded black pepper and turmeric power for additional flavour and colour. Also, from the regular foodie part of the operation, acquired an excellent peice of cheddar from a shop which appeared to sell mainly cheddar and another cheese which came round and flat, maybe a foot across and four inches deep and covered in some bright yellow wrap. The cheddar was about the same price per pound as the not very good cheese I acquired recently from Waitrose (see May 21 & 25) despite this being a hard core foodie operation for people with more money than myself. You could certainly have a lot of flannel with your food if you were that way inclined.
Good music acts between the cookery demonstrations.
Globe pub still alive and well, even if its Bombardier was a touch off on this occasion. Still got through a bit of it.
The first dream concerned a visit to the house of a friend. Great sprawling place, full of animals, bedding, small children, all kinds of stuff. It seems that I had elected myself coordinator of a four part presentation of which I was actually in the lead for one part. So I was going to knock up the whole thing and the others could fit their material into my framework. Clear echoes here of my waking self which likes to be in charge. The catch was there was no time and I knew next to nothing about any of the four parts. The other catch was finding time and space to actually put in the quality time needed to make progress, and failing completely. Animals and children climbing all over the laptop. No table to work on. Strange people popping in and out of bedding.
In the second dream, core problem the same in that I had to prepare or give a presentation. I was staying in a newish tower block hotel in somewhere I did not recognise but knew to be Rome. The hotel was next to another tower block and for some reason, in order to get to the hotel, you had to get to this second tower block, go up many floors in the lift and get out at the ground floor before crossing the piazza to the hotel. Space clearly a bit warped. On entry, I find myself with someone else with powerpoint problems and he thought he needed to try the thing out on the receptionist's laptop. To see if it would get past the sentry software. Quite irrationally, I was thinking that I would not let A. N Other salesman load his powerpoint onto my laptop. It might start sending my email back to his headquarters. Receptionists ought to have blank laptops they use for such purposes. Moving on, my hotel room included a large balcony on which people were having breakfast but which I found rather cold in my dressing gown, despite the interesting view down to the town.
The town itself specialised in shops which opened onto escalators so that you could do your shopping while going up and down. A lot of cigar shops of this sort. This second dream seems rather incoherent now, but maybe the lead idea was height rather than powerpoint.
Last week to Borough Market, once a regular vegetable market serving that part of London, and now a den of foodies, home on this occasion to an event called 'Taste of Spain'. On the way called in at Southwark Cathedral. We learn that as well as being the most notable gothic church in central London - most of the rest having burned down in the fire of London - that the nave had been more or less completely rebuilt towards the end of the 19th century, the place having fallen into disrepair. Now despite the whole place being in very good condition, I had not noticed that the nave was any differant from the chancel. It seems that they went to a lot of bother to get the two to match. What I did notice was rather clumsy looking reinforcing stone behind the slender columns of the triforium. But not introduced by the Victorian rebuilders; the same feature figured at both ends. Lots of intriguing funerary monuments. A very droll effigy of a sucessful pill manufacturer. A very strange monument to some family which wanted to flaunt an agricultural connection. Complete with ladies with rakes and scythes. Bundles of wheat. Lots of gilding. Whole thing looked a bit pagan to me, temple to Ceres sort of thing. Interesting mix of stained glass with some of the modern stuff working well. The stuff in the north transept working particularly well. Properly worked into to the texture of the tracery.
The 'Taste of Spain' seemed to be more cookery demonstration and grocery than the snackery I had been expecting, although there was some of that. Acquired an excellent small sausage of the salami variety. About a foot long, rather flat and covered in flour. Animal product skin and ate well both hot and cold. Hot in an Epsom paella mainly made with rice and smoked haddock. Bit of butter fried onion, pounded black pepper and turmeric power for additional flavour and colour. Also, from the regular foodie part of the operation, acquired an excellent peice of cheddar from a shop which appeared to sell mainly cheddar and another cheese which came round and flat, maybe a foot across and four inches deep and covered in some bright yellow wrap. The cheddar was about the same price per pound as the not very good cheese I acquired recently from Waitrose (see May 21 & 25) despite this being a hard core foodie operation for people with more money than myself. You could certainly have a lot of flannel with your food if you were that way inclined.
Good music acts between the cookery demonstrations.
Globe pub still alive and well, even if its Bombardier was a touch off on this occasion. Still got through a bit of it.
# posted by Jim @ 10:17 PM 
