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A day in the life

8 May, 2008

Feeling good

I reached the office an hour late this morning, having been for a ~20 km bike ride in T-shirt & shorts, as it's a sunny day which promises to get quite hot.  I feel great.


5 May, 2008

I'll pass. No, really.

Buying a sandwich and bag of crisps from the Students' Union shop, I was offered a free bottle of water.


4 May, 2008

Attempted warning

My spellchecker 'corrected' 'worst-case scenario' to 'Worcester scenario'.


2 May, 2008

Time locked

Just for a change, I returned to my office from the postroom via the long route* this morning, passing the office & lab I occupied as a PhD student.


29 April, 2008

No fun anymore

Aw....  I'm getting so good at spouting buzzwords at cold-calling CRM/CMS vendors that I totally switch off, and I didn't even enjoy totally misleading the last one.

21 April, 2008

Restraint beyond the call of duty

A colleague in Events tells me she held a door open for an elderly male dignitary on Friday, was told she was "the prettiest doorstop I've met all day" and didn't embed the door handle in his head.  Wow.

17 April, 2008

Superposition

I needed to promote a lecture on 'quantum future' (?) this morning, but encountered a familiar conflict: the flyer, printed weeks ago, stated one seminar room, but the organiser's e-mail, possibly incorporating an amendment, stated a different lecture theatre.

The solution was obvious.


11 April, 2008

Would you let them in?

On my way to work this morning, I passed a van belonging to some sort of home-help, independent-living -enablement agency.  I didn't catch the name, as the slogan rather distracted me:

[Company name] – Hearing Voices

7 April, 2008

Don't ask me to talk

Why does dental anaesthetic make the affected area feel massively swollen?  Why not smaller; why any perceived change in size at all?


19 March, 2008

Neeed sleeeep...

Walking along the corridor a moment ago, I smiled at the person approaching the other side of a door wearing a 'Marbles' t-shirt*.


12 March, 2008

À Paris

Bientôt de retour.

4 March, 2008

Wake up call

Note to self: remember to close the back door before going to bed, thereby avoiding the necessity of showering in a room at 2°C.


3 March, 2008

Corporate rates

A campus-wide power cut today meant that my scheduled three-hour meeting about CRM (i.e. rather reliant on the availability of a networked PC and projection facilities) was moved to a nearby hotel.  I hadn't had an opportunity to grab any lunch, as the lack of electricity had also closed all the shops on campus, so my boss was kind enough to buy me a sandwich from the bar.


1 March, 2008

Hippies with mortgages

Traffic was rather heavy in town this afternoon, as an anti-capitalist march was criss-crossing the one-way system: a small group of campaigners in oh-so-amusing costumes were protesting against plans to open a department store in the city centre and a supermarket in Scotforth.


26 February, 2008

Hide that blimp!

I missed a meeting this morning, instead atttending one which compressed four days of work¹ into two hours².

However, I did receive the 'handout' from the first meeting, a 30-page document "to which [one of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors] spoke".  A fifty-something professor lecturing an inanimate object.  Yep; pretty normal for a university.


24 February, 2008

Wide open

In principle, it's a great idea for a website to draw on a master stylesheet and store repeatedly-used images in a common directory, but it's a bit of a bugger when one needs to design a new section from a geographical location lacking editing access to those central directories.
Hence, whilst I'd usually work at home out-of-hours (when I must, not by choice!), I've had to spend a significant chunk of the weekend at my office PC.  It's remarkably productive to work without the interruptions of colleagues, e-mail and the phone, and with the incentive of being able to go home as soon as I finish.


15 February, 2008

Lost sale

As the department's designated 'techie' (a very relative term - real techies would find my level of knowledge laughable), I've been asked to advise on ordering a new PC for a colleague.


30 January, 2008

System crash

That was a little scary.


22 January, 2008

Ooh! Flying machine!

Heh.  I suppose I have to acknowledge I live in a bit of a backwater when I wonder whether there's been a traffic accident simply because I can hear the helicopter.  The helicopter: the police helicopter, which is the only helicopter I'm likely to hear in the Lancaster area.


19 January, 2008

Chilled cheese

Why is it that a few moments after eating a piece of really good mature cheddar, I break into a cold sweat?
It's a strange sensation, like spirit alcohol evaporating off the exposed skin of my hands and forehead.

3 January, 2008

Thrill of the chase

I'll be travelling back up country with my mother tomorrow, from Devon to her home in North Wales.  Neither of us will fancy cooking after a ~7 hour drive, so she's saved a voucher for a free meal from a certain chain of roadside diners.
I don't particularly like fast food, but it'll do.


21 December, 2007

Don't see that every night

I don't know who was more startled, the 'large cat' I spotted on my yard wall so went out to scare away, or the fox that it turned out to be.

22 November, 2007

Sic transit

Well, that's it.  Everything in my office, from the PC to the wastepaper bin to the cleaner trying to empty it (it was a joke, okay?) has been labelled for the removal men and I'm going home for the rest of the week.  Publications has left the building.


19 November, 2007

A true manager

This morning, I woke instantly, from fast asleep to rigidly anxious in an almost audible rush of adrenaline.


16 November, 2007

Gregg'd again

I suppose it's good for departmental cohesion that there's a baker on campus, but the staff are useless.  Yet again, an order for eight individual cakes has produced a bag of seven items, two of them not the ones requested.

Still, better than having to make my own, I suppose.

12 November, 2007

Ominous

Seen in the University's internal e-mail 'newsletter':

WANTED: Flemish / Shepherd's / Other Bagpipes: instrument, information, tuition.
Please contact [snipped].
Is that a small ad, or statutory warning?

12 November, 2007

Thought it was too cheap

I'm not entirely sure why I'm advertising my foolishness, but thinking I was ordering Wong Kar Wai's 1995 film 'Fallen Angels' from Amazon, I've accidentally bought some straight-to-video slasher-horror film by the same name.


24 October, 2007

Tender memories

Incredulity overheard in Alex Square:

"Apparently, there used to be pound notes."


19 October, 2007

Rumblings of discontent

Remember I mentioned being asked about availability for the staff chrismas meal?  It seems twelve people (of twenty or so) have declined to attend.

Yay!  Morale!

4 October, 2007

News is free

A couple of minutes ago, I was stopped in Alex Square by someone wishing to sell me a cut-price subscription to The Guardian.

Pay for the newspaper, whilst the website offers the same content?  Are you mad, sir?

3 October, 2007

False start

I tried to book a place on a staff development course this morning, entitled 'Running Successful Projects'.


27 September, 2007

Curtains for me

Sometimes my job seems a little random.


26 September, 2007

Cutting it fine

When it's brilliantly sunny outside and the trees still have most of their leaves, it seems strange to receive an e-mail investigating availability for the work christmas meal.


24 September, 2007

Black spot

I can report that according to the Ministry Pollution Index (determined by blowing my nose after a day in a city) the air quality in Central London (particulates, anyway) is comparable to that of Prague, and worse than Barcelona, Madrid, Berlin, Wien, Venezia, Liverpool and Manchester, amongst others; even worse than Warszawa and New York.


24 September, 2007

The morning found me miles away

I couldn't have planned this even if I'd thought to....


20 September, 2007

Sky falling!

The price of milk on campus has increased!
It's surprisingly unsettling when things like that happen.


18 September, 2007

Brossen

I don't have a particularly fatty diet, but as I've described before, every few months my body decides it needs a minor binge, and I feel the urge for a traditional 'cooked breakfast' (as an evening meal): bacon, sausages, a fried tomato and baked beans.  I occasionally add a slice of black pudding, but never, ever, under any circumstances, an egg.  That'd totally ruin it.


6 September, 2007

Guten Morgen, Wien

I feel the urge for apfelstrudel, perhaps even a little chocolate torte.

Back soon.

5 September, 2007

Fancy, that

Thirty years ago, if I took sandwiches to school, it's likely that they'd have contained cheese¹ & tomato, probably enlivened by a little black pepper.
It suddenly struck me that today's equivalent would have been inconceivable in 1977.


29 August, 2007

Not yet!

It seems this year's non-Summer has confused the trees, too.  Cycling home from work a few minutes ago (yes, at 20:00; don't ask), I noticed an alarming amount of red and yellow at the tips of several branches, especially of sycamores.

It's only August, but it looks as if the leaves will be falling within a couple of weeks.

29 August, 2007

What am I supposed to do with that?

This is hardly a novel complaint, but isn't it annoying when a colleague hands one a sheet of typed text, asking for it to be "put on the web"?  The text has obviously been typed, almost certainly using a computer, yet somehow it's considered sensible to print it out and make one retype it, and somehow it's considered "obstructive" to request an electronic copy.

27 August, 2007

You can say that again

I'm regularly relieved to be required to report in writing.  Inadvertently composed whilst proofing:
"Redundant.  A resident Residence Officer obviously resides officially."

22 August, 2007

Beyond marketing

I spent an hour or so this morning touring the College's residences, as I need a few photos for the website.  My first act on completion was to thoroughly wash my hands.  If the corridors smell of vegetable oil, socks and even (in one instance) damp, what's coating the door handles, light switches, etc.?  Ew.


19 August, 2007

Culinary advice

Roll-mop herrings: filleted fish rolled around slices of onion and pickled in sweet vinegar.  Yum.


16 July, 2007

Pressures of work

Dunno when, or indeed if, I'm going to find time to post anything here this week, so don't worry if it all seems to go quiet.


24 June, 2007

New & improved

Label on washing tablets: "New, Effective Formula!"

Not a great advert for the previous formula – it sounds as if an apology to earlier customers might be appropriate.


8 June, 2007

Shh!

If you give a colleague a lift to work, that's great.


6 June, 2007

Discoveries of the day

  • Ingleton, North Yorkshire, a major focus (if not the major focus) of caving in the UK, is not named in Google Maps, at any zoom level.  The streets and buildings are shown, but the settlement isn't named.  Search for 'Ingleton' and you'll get a tiny hamlet in Co. Durham.

23 May, 2007

As confirmed by a University spokesperson...

Oh dear.

As I write, my colleague, a clerical assistant working on (print format) promotional publications, is fielding a random phone call from a person wanting her to endorse his solution to global warming.

17 May, 2007

Cosmologist's apostrophe

Occasionally, I receive reminders that I work at a prestigious research-led university.
Subtle indications, like the return address on an internal mail envelope being ' [NAME], Physic's'.

14 May, 2007

Get on with it

Ever find the world is moving too slowly?


24 April, 2007

This means you

It seemed a little gratuitous to mention it here, but a student was run-over by a truck yesterday afternoon, right outside my window.  The scream was memorable.


15 April, 2007

Not exactly summer

But I have seen my first Swallow of the year, near Ingleton, N.Yorkshire.

13 April, 2007

Work to live, right?

Going to bed last night and waking this morning, I had every intention of skipping work today and going for a walk in the Lakes – the Langdale Pikes, maybe Bow Fell.  I'd catch up work tomorrow (Saturday), of course.


27 March, 2007

Grazie, Venezia, e buona notte

I'm back (obviously).

More in a later entry, perhaps, but in short: if you haven't visited Venice, do so.  Highly recommended.


22 March, 2007

Fino a Martedì

Off to Venice for the weekend.

I've heard the streets can be a bit damp, so I'd better pump up my bike tyres as far as they'll go, and mustn't forget to keep pedalling.


20 March, 2007

But how...?

A sign on the photocopier says it's out of order.

The sign itself is a photocopy.

20 February, 2007

Hypothetically...

Ever dropped small change into the thigh pocket of a pair of combats, then realised one isn't actually wearing combats that day?

Ahem.  No, nor me.  No-one saw anything.  Didn't happen.


18 February, 2007

Scenic route

I was considering a bike ride in the Yorkshire Dales this morning, and in order to eliminate the 15-20 mile lead-in (just getting to the Dales, before starting the 'proper' ride), I checked the train timetable.
Great; there was a train to Bentham, leaving at 10:20, arriving at... 16:59?  That's 6:39 hours for a 30-35 minute route!


16 February, 2007

You think you know people

... then discover that an ex-colleague, a senior psychologist, has thrown himself off a cliff in Hawaii.

8 February, 2007

Is it 18:00 yet?

Yep, that's my work ethic.

Well, maybe just at the moment.


26 January, 2007

Not one I'd have chosen

Ever heard of someone naming a baby girl 'Trinity' (in the UK)?

Now I have.

20 January, 2007

Improbable wounds no.1

How the **** have I managed to slice the tips of two fingers with a chicken?

7 January, 2007

It's my cinema; mine, I tell you

Wow.  Considering the films I normally watch at The Dukes tend to attract single-figure audiences, it's great to see a long queue outside the cinema less than five minutes before the scheduled start time.  It's especially impressive for a film in Spanish.


30 December, 2006

Joking?

Message displayed by my bank's cashtill before I inserted my card:

Ask about our gift vouchers!


29 December, 2006

Taste explosion

A crescent of melon, sliced into bite-sized segments is very familiar, so imagine my reaction when it turned out to be pineapple.
I think that was deliberate – my 'compliments' to the chef. ;)


28 December, 2006

Mildly traumatised

It would be appreciated if everyone could avoid use of the word 'Next' for a few days.

Thank you for your consideration.


26 December, 2006

Extracting the digit

A couple of months ago, I bought a Freeview digital TV receiver (set-top box) for my mother's birthday.  There was a complication in connecting it to the existing network of TV, VCR and DVD Recorder, so I left the final configuration to my mother's partner, a self-defined enthusiast.


22 December, 2006

Kids today

Just seen: a skirt (or was it a belt?) which I genuinely, literally, not at all metaphorically, couldn't distinguish from a belt (or was it a skirt?).

Worn with leggings, thankfully.

21 December, 2006

I remember that...

Wow.  A sunset.  Haven't seen one of those for weeks.

20 December, 2006

What can I say?

Is it only me who finds it difficult to hold a neutral, unrevealing conversation about leather and garters with my (female, attractive) line manager?


18 December, 2006

Conflict of cultures

An admin officer has instructed a cleaner to wash the, admittedly very dusty, main stairs in my building, so now they're thoroughly wet just as the contractors are bringing in sacks of cement.  It could be plaster, I suppose, but whatever; it's something powdery which will react with water to leave a rather persistent residue.


15 December, 2006

See-through shirt

I spend too much time in Photoshop.


11 December, 2006

Safety check, my arse.

About a week ago, I received a letter from my gas supplier, informing me that an engineer would need to visit my home in order to conduct a vital safety check, in accordance with the company's statutory responsibilities.


8 December, 2006

CSI Bailrigg

Something odd seen whilst cycling to work this morning: a man who had been raking dead leaves before stopping to comfort a small child screaming in terror or shock, the whole little tableau accompanied by a smell of death* distinct from even 20 m away.


5 December, 2006

Forward planning

Just noticed that my boss has a box file on her shelf, labeled:

STRAT
EGY

2 December, 2006

Living dangerously

Whoa.
I've just made a cup of English Breakfast tea, at 19:56 in the evening.

I'm a rebel, me.

29 November, 2006

Steady....

Notice circulated to staff a couple of minutes ago:

There is a sign on the toilet doors saying they are closed but the men working in there will come out if anyone wants to use them.


24 November, 2006

Trying to tell me something?

A cold-caller has just tried to persuade me, nominally a graphic/web designer, to take a Photoshop training course.

At least I think it was an unsolicited call....

15 November, 2006

Engage autosave

A notification has been circulated, telling us that there'll be an electrical shutdown on Saturday for the installation of new connections.  It advises staff to "save all work/documents before leaving their offices on Friday".
Do people really leave files unsaved and open all weekend?

10 November, 2006

Incommunicado, okay?

Given that I worked from home today specifically to escape the phone, e-mail and chatty colleagues, it's a little disappointing to have spent at least 75 minutes on work-related e-mails.

I've had enough.  Time for a pint*.


8 November, 2006

Pattern recognition

I visited J & F for a meal last night, and happened to notice a pot of Marmite on a kitchen shelf, next to a jar of vegetable bouillion *.


5 November, 2006

Something I like about the Gregson

Well, there are several things I like about Lancaster's Gregson Centre, but the one I want to mention is this: after spending over an hour there last night, my clothes smell faintly of fried food.


2 November, 2006

My left foot is ticking

Most disconcerting....


28 October, 2006

Enough!

I stopped sleeping with the windows open a couple of weeks ago when I was ill, but for no real reason, I'd been trying to manage without central heating until the start of November.


25 October, 2006

Business or pleasure?

J. has rung in sick, reporting he's in bed with a 'chesty cough'.

Or did he say 'tasty Goth'?

24 October, 2006

It's here

Condensation on my bedroom window; visible breath whilst cycling; the first frost melting in watery sunshine: the weather's on the change.

18 October, 2006

Geese getting fat yet?

How can one make a precise menu selection for the 'work' christmas meal two full months before the event?  I don't even know what to have for lunch today!


12 October, 2006

Cycling with sheep

Cycle commuters in real urban centres like Manchester and Leeds might face tougher traffic conditions than in sleepy little Lancaster, but at least they don't have to share road space with truckloads of sheep* on their way to the livestock market.


9 October, 2006

I'm meltiiiing...

The Michelmas (autumn) term has begun so, by definition, the University's central heating has been turned on, irrespective of whether the weather demands it.  That's routine, and not worth questioning; at least individual radiators can be turned down/off (well, those with functioning valves, anyway).


5 October, 2006

Hair today

I've just realised that it's fifteen years, perhaps to the week, since my last real haircut i.e. by a professional hairdresser rather than merely the ends being tidied by friends/family.
I'd have thought it'd be longer by now.  It's still going strong, though, so I'm not complaining!

4 October, 2006

Fr. Malaprop

A certain office colleague is completing a dental registration form, and has stated his occupation as 'cleric'.  He's a clerk.

Near enough....

25 September, 2006

Aisles decked

It's the moment for which you've all been waiting: the Sainsbury's christmas stock is now on the shelves.


24 September, 2006

Momentarily vacant

Have you ever taken a bunch of keys from your pocket and, just for a moment, wondered not which key you need but what these odd metal things actually are?

13 September, 2006

In a world of my own

Update on the noisy office environment: acknowledging that, as Tim suggested, my employers were in breach of health & safety regulations, we've now been issued with proper ear defenders.


11 September, 2006

Drowning out Opeth

ARGH!  THE CONTRACTORS ARE (ah; it's stopped) using a pneumatic drill inside thE BUILDING (bugger!)!


8 September, 2006

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