Naff

Goodness me, the Christmas Market is naff, and certainly looks so in the cold light of day.

Yet another fun filled day (in this case, meant more literally than ironically). I got soaked in a sharp shower just as I went in to my 9am meeting, but at least I'd procured some strong coffee to keep me going. Another sharp shower arrived around the time I went back to the office, collecting my gown on the way. I was caught out by the decision to change the location of the staff robing room, but at least I didn't get corralled into the Maths graduation by mistake!

The rest of the day was equally a blur. Meetings, an annual review, a quick march to the ECA campus for a very long meeting which included "table work" (not my favourite....), a march back again, and then the main event, which was curating a "conversation" between me and one of my predecessors in the chair (in the extra), in the presence of considerable numbers of members of his family and members of the family of the original holder of the chair (the Mitchells). A friend in the audience sent me the extra, which I've tried to sharpen up a bit. I'm happy to memorialise it. It went well. The point was to showcase David, but without making him stand on his pins for 45 minutes to deliver a lecture. It was like a book festival event and it worked well because I think it came across as pretty spontaneous, but that was not entirely true, of course. Lots of questions from the audience, of course. Thereafter, it was a tale of two receptions, with me flitting between a reception for our graduating online postgraduate students in the cafe, and a reception for our event in TR2 almost next door. Lots of people to chat to. Then to La Garrigue for dinner in their private "coin" at the back. Home, collapsing, in a taxi, but still no lift grrrhhhh. This is beyond a joke.