Week Notes 41 & 42

Blogging

All we have to show for the last two week’s is yesterday’s classic album post. And I only write that because I was feeling guilty about not having written anything else.

Health

Massive failures on this front too. I’m currently about two and a half pounds heavier that the lightest I’ve been. Two weeks ago I had a bad weekend when I ate far too much. That was followed by a few days when I was running a training course for some clients where food was far too easily available. As a result of all of that I put on about four pounds. The last two weeks have a been a slow attempt to lose that weight.

But that’s not the only failure. Two weeks ago I had a tour of the facilities of the Balham Leisure Centre. I came away from that with a free pass to use the centre for a week. And then I failed to use it at all. Ok, that’s not exactly true. On the Friday night I had an hour’s session where an instructor showed my how to use all the gym equipment. I left that session fired up to go back over the weekend and start exercising. I didn’t do that. And I haven’t been back since.

This is the second time this has happened to me. About twenty years ago, when I was working for Disney, a gym opened in the complex where the office was based. Before it opened, they came to the office and ran assessment sessions for anyone who was interested. When it opened, the offered us all free introductory sessions. I took them up on both of those offers. Then, a few days later, a friend and I went to do our first session at the gym. As we neared it, we saw that it was full of really fit-looking people. We looked at each other, turned around and went to the pub instead. We never went back.

I’m not sure what it is about me and gyms, but we don’t seem to be a good match.

Training and Speaking

I’m starting to think I may have over-committed slightly. There’s a lot coming up that I need to prepare for.

There’s the London Perl Workshop on 24th November. I know I need to write a two-hour Moose tutorial for that. And I’ve proposed another couple of talks as well. One of them would mean quite a lot of preparation.

Two weeks later, there’s Perl School 3. That’s an extended (six hour) version of the Moose course.

And in February I’m running my annual series of public training courses in conjunction with Floss UK and O’Reilly.

Films

I’ve seen The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Ginger & Rosa. I thought Wallflower was great, but Ginger & Rosa was a little disappointing. The cast were great and they all put in really good performances, but the plot and characterisation were both a bit obvious.

I should point out that both of those visits to the Clapham Picturehouse were paid for using free tickets that I was given by Virgin Media Shorts. I’m not entirely sure what I did to earn them, but Peer Index were involved.

Gigs

On Monday 8th I saw Radiohead at the O2. I thought the band were great (although their setlist was a bit too heavily weighted towards newer material for my tastes) but I hated the O2. I was on level 4 on a seat that was pretty much at the side of the stage. I should really have been sold as “limited view”. The seats are uncomfortable, the prices are ridiculous and there’s no atmosphere. I won’t be going to the O2 again.

On Saturday 13th I saw John Cale at the Royal Festival Hall. I saw him there a couple of years ago where he played Paris 1919 all the way through which was great. This was less so. I think my problem is that I don’t actually like John Cale as much as I think I do.

Then on Tuesday 16th I saw Suzanne Vega at the Barbican. She was playing a short series of tours to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Solitude Standing. She played the whole album and then followed it with a few more favourites. It was a great night. I think I should add her to my list of people who I see every time they are in town.

This week is going to be busy. I’m going the three gigs in the next five days. More on them next week.