Too good to sit on

I had a fascinating lunchtime when I stopped for a cup of coffee in my local bookshop. An old and shabby looking man with an equally old and shabby looking dog started chatting with me. It turned out he was a camera operator in the film industry for several decades and had worked on some big movies including A Bridge Too Far and Ghandi. I gave him my phone number and suggested we meet again so that I could interview him for my podcast.
 
I also got chatting to one of the coffee shop staff about the great Dungeons and Dragons controversy. I'll be covering this at length in this week's podcast, it's a fascinating contemporary twist on a game that has been around for five decades.

Work was tricky today as I was involved in one meeting where people were overreaching themselves, another about business continuity which I found it difficult to focus on (although I was kept to task by a colleague who is much better at the detail than I am) and another where the objective was to sew the heads back on to chickens. 

Came across a wonderful biography of my father online today which I need to take a good look at. It includes the following quote from a conference he spoke at in 1981:

"The task of building the NHS is difficult because you cannot build an island of socialism in a cesspit of capitalism.".

Those words, with some paraphrasing, are very true today. The NHS is failing because the corrupt and short sighted Tory economic policies are failing it. I say this two years to the day since the UK passed 100,000 deaths from Covid. Things need to get better.

Difficult trip to the vet with Dylan. He has an open wound which is going to need some work and a lot of management. Going back to the vet tomorrow for phase 1,

Really enjoyable fiftieth birthday party in a local wine bar this evening. An old colleague who lives locally. May have had a wee bit more to drink than was strictly good for me... but a nice way to finish a difficult week. 

Interesting encounter with a fire crew before we got there. Another story for the podcast…