Okey Dokey so the down side....

...of deciding to blog everyday I'd that at 2am after the greatest consumption of red wine in my life, I feel like Zzzzzz not......

But it was a brill day!

BBC live recording at Madia Vale including two sparkling Ives pieces:

And after a lovely drink with my favorite black nipple obsessed friend in the second most beautiful pub in London......a stroll to.....

If you can make him out, that's Robbie Williams holding court in the most glam and expensive garden centre in town.....(wonder why he's wearing the same outfit he wore on Newsnight 3 nights ago)

More wine at a special din at Charterhouse for all the incredible folks who helped to make our exhibition ending tomorrow such a success!

Finally back from my first Xmas song of '13 cause it's the day after Thanksgiving!

Now to Zzzzzzzzzzz

A Red Letter Day!

I wonder what that means?

This:

It seems that saints days where highlighted in red letters in illuminated manuscripts.

Well that relates to the subject of my "red letter day"

You may not realise it but you are looking at a logo that I hope you will see in the future along with the name of an Intrenet web site; I saw a bargain at....

The very bright young team of creatives working with me have been just that,  bright and creative!

And an uber entertaining evening watching some stars!

Oh what a red letter day!

Still

Feeling low, so not too much again today.

But I could not let the day pass without a photo and mention of one of our special dos.

We had our Founder's Day Lunch today.  Our Governors, Brothers and staff join together to commemorate our benefactor, Thomas Sutton.

Thanks Tom!

Another short blog.....

Says it all.......

A picture paints

And this is all I have to say about that......

Celebratory

Yes it was it was.....

Rested in the morning cause my congestion kept me awake, but then our special Sunday lunch.

As you can see Trish, the Master's boss, received the memo and we both wore purple:

We had a number of visitors, friends of St Bart's the Great, our famous neighbouring church.

Interesting conversations aplenty ensued.

Then a newish friend came by to visit.

Alecky is a Kiwi and cause she told me, when we met at Show Off last week, she was interested in Forensic Antropology I thought she should come and look at our Master's Garden where we want to work out which Brothers were buried there.  Watch this plot.

Then off to an Islington watering hole to bid a farewell fond to dear Beric....who is moving out of London to a rural lake cottage.

Check out TV star Nix peering up from her perch. 

Glorious and disastrous

This blog is late....I know.....

Yesterday was sunny and a lovely day to be out.

In the afternoon I went to St Paul's Knightsbridge to listen to the BBC Singers.

It was a Britten Centenary Celebration and the sounds were glorious!

After a healthy bit of retail therapy I decided on another anniversary to see Parkland.

It was a well done and restrained chronicle of those horrendous days 50 years ago.

Later in the evening I watched a tv doc on the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Stuck in the middle.....

....with history!

Today was a history and administration day.

After breakfast we were invited to visit the Cutlers' Hall.

Loads of pictures follow: 

The Cutlers' consider themselves the precursors of civilisation.

They point out that once you dig a hole to capture an animal, you require a sharpen flint to separate the pelt from your McCave happy meal.  Then you have clothing, shelter and the WGMS.

I didn't dare mention that the Paviers were the ones who dug the hole.....

The style of the building from the late 1800's is Scottish Baronial.....I will elucidate.

Once a Scot owned enough property from which he could accrue all the materials necessary to build his pile on his own land; that could be considered Baronial.

Since the pine was the tree on hand, there are none off the curves of the soft Southerners.

I then pointed out the curved window box on the second floor....I won't be invited back!

The Cutlers have an amazing collection of swords amongst other items.

The sword in the foreground belonged to the Black Prince as welded at the Battle of Poitiers.

And here's something you don't see everyday.

Can you see the carpark through the window on the first floor?

That is the former public gallows yard at the Old Bailey.

It was a brilliant tour, filled with facts and anacdotal stories.

And then, after designing the graphic templates for the sADw site, a Brother's Meeting.

So much going on! 

We are so so well looked after here, by the very best people available.

All over and above; as should be the case in our special community.

Blessed....

Satisfying Day

All the elements that make up the community life here: we come together at breakfast, find out how we are, what's going on, and laugh and joke.  Prepping for this afternoon's meeting followed and then lunch.  For the first time I mentioned this blog to the Master.  Think he will be supportive of my effort to provide a venue in which other Brothers can record their activities and thoughts.  He understands that is a longtime term objective.

And then the meeting of the two teams constructing socialADworking; the Black Box Team and the Marketing Team.

It was great...a lot accomplished...a lot of bright young minds.  Watch out world, here we come.

Not the best day

...cause my congestion got the best of me.
Coughing was causing me to not be able to breath.  I made an appointment and went to the Clerkenwell Medical Centre.

I really like my doctor and the building itself is noteworthy as the information from reception indicates.
Since my night was wracked I came back and slept.
Later worked with a Brothers coms and prepared for tomorrow meeting with the sADw teams.

Today was the 150th anniversary of the greatest speech ever made.
I am willing to debate that Lincoln's sense of brevity, simplicity, veracity, and message has never been bettered.
Self taught and with no life influence other than his own abilities to bring him to his place and time represents the true and best aspects of The American Dream.
With perhaps our Prez as the second best example.....proud I am.

So here's the thing.....

....not sure I can report on too much cause of......

We are taliking 7% of loveliness!
Combined with an opportunity to talk to a new friend who works at the best pub in The Big Smoke...
The day was inconsequencial cepting a chat with Claire, an attempt to find out the health of a Brother who has been taken ill, a visit to Apple to sort out a prob with my phone resulting in a new replacement, and a brilliant and funny lunch time repast.
Now abit more prep for Zillions....

Down time.....

A day of thoughtfulness....
The brightest of starts; a chance to sit at breakfast with a wonderful family of visitors.

They had a great time at the England Kiwi Rugby game....and even though we had practiced Swing Low the previous day, it didn't assist England enough to produce a win.
Never mind it seems it was a great match.

From 11:30 I was on duty at our ongoing exhibition.
Seems there was a Tweet yesterday and the crowds kept coming.  Another sold out tour and happy campers mean we have a success on our hands and that bodes well for our future plans.
Spoke to some very nice people and afterwards spent the remainder of the day prepping for a busy week.

Heaven and heaven

The only disappointment of my day was that Brother Daisy was not well enough to travel to Camden Passage.  He is a little frail at the moment and I know it is a great frustration as this time last year he would visit twice a week.
Can only hope that he gets better soon.
This afternoon I travelled to Ebbsfleet on the speed train to be picked up by Ricardo.
We drove to Gravesend to a Vintage Fair where the Haywood Sister were singing.

They were fab and we had a drink and a laugh after the show.

Then rushed back to town to meet Claire to go to the 3D flicks.

Gravity is a superb film.  I consider it ground breaking in its' visual concept.

If the intention of cinema is to captivate and transport into a compelling narrative or experience, then this film does just that.

Well done, whoever you are Gravity production team.

Oh and Sandra Bullock too.....what's not to like there?

So my only excuse is.....

That most of the day I was without my phone......so what ensued:

Don't know how I manged to leave my phone on Thursday night near the Crazy Coqs open mic.

Thank goodness someone turned it in and I retrieved it.

In the evening I went to Show Off and met some lovely people.

Music and Myth

Firstly, televisual entertainment last eve was a treasury of musical theatre!
The BBC scored highly once again with a terrific study of the Jews on Broadway.

It is remarkable how but for Cole, the great majority of the great American musical theatre had an ancestry from eastern Europe.   Some amazing clips and well worth a watch.

Today there was a development meeting of about 2 hours rationalising budgets.
After lunch I sorted an order for a Brother's new mobile.

This evening I went to a seminar at Apple.

The subject matter concerned what a great city London is for a tech start up.
I hope so and since the speaker's office is around the corner I will try and organise a meet here.

And then a little high relief.

Had a chance to watch Thor and his buddies trash Greenwich.  What fun!

Confused

I'm sure you've had those times....
Just when you think you're in control of everything everywhere, something goes awry and you suddenly wonder how that happened.

So a bit of a misunderstanding this morning and bridges had to be built and diplomacy generated.
Luckily one of my Brothers has become a good friend and we use each other as sounding boards.
I learn a lot from talking to him and he has been a therapist in one of the premier clinics in the country.
In some ways I think it's a compliment that my Brother wants to talk to me about his concerns.
And yesterday one of the very senior Brothers asked my opinion about something.
That also made me feel valuable to my community.
And, as it happens, the misunderstanding this morning will I think turn out alright and end up contributing to the future of our home.
So hey!, talking and writing about it helps.

Trailing after...

...the events these days!

Let's see; the day was occupied with work in the morning.

After lunch I was assisting a Brother with his coms.

I find it remarkable that more people don't do what we do.

Because there is no cabling in Charterhouse yet, we have had to rely on BT lines for broadband, but no longer. I now use my phone as my router and tether all my computers to that unit.

Free phone, no line rental, no router payment to BT and that is cheaper.

Later in the afternoon went for a pre op assessment.

Then after lovely grub, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment gave a concert of Handel in the Great Chamber.

Little more paperwork and then Zzzzzzzzzzz.

Oh, one more image to add.  Those who consider Charterhouse a little stayed and reserve.....

The only question of reserve around here is to do with bins.

Catching up.....

Cause I've been very tired and very busy.....
Friday night forgot to mention the minor do going on here.
The investiture of the new Lord Mayor.  The first woman to be.....

Here she is on our minstrel gallery and some of the great and good on hand, including a Prime Minister or two....

Last night I was at the Shard with Sis to watch the fireworks, but got the timing wrong...so we just drank until we saw our own.
We then went to an Indian in the East End that I have to admit I've never been to before and it was packed with clients wanting to get in.  Sam must have had magic cause we were seated right away.

To round off the eve we went along to the Palm Tree to listen to the fab-lous music.
There....did you field that?

Back in Action

Busy day!

To relate......lovely breakfast catching up with the Bros.

When I wandered out, found a group from MofL doing explorations in thee Square.

Having to try to determine whether number of bodies buried here is closer to 30,000 or 50,000.

Missed lunch to meet with Kath and go to a wonderful free concert at St Luke's.

What a virtuoso performance by a 21 year old under grad from Guildhall call Antonina Suhanova.

The program was two pieces of Rachmaninoff and one Prokofiev.  Brilliant; what an amazing career this young woman has in front of her.

Some hot choc, chat and news about a possible open mic site followed....

In the evening it was Barge Party time thanks to the Fetter Lane Boys!

There's Sis enjoying the Fems and here's your's truly sharing the celebratory event that is the Mexican Day of the Dead!

Scared? You'd better be!

One last rest/work day.....

So there I was in front of a class of about a hundred business students talking about socialADworking.

I was seeking volunteers to participate in the site build as a marketing team.

18 students responded and I'll being making my selection in conjunction with the lecturers for next week.

Because I am still very congested I decided to stay in and rest rather than go to the Barge, Crazy Coqs and Ronnie Scott's.

Since there are parties tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday....that should be enough for any wallflower.....

Another day.....another.......

......quiet day.
Still trying not to cough every 5 minutes so I thought it best to stay in and work.
One meeting; Development Committee that is planning our new works to be completed in the next few years. 
One of the things I worked on was to prepare some visuals on some design suggestions.

Now it's just a question of presenting these proposals to the right people at the right time.
And speaking of presenting, the other material I was concocting was for my meeting with students who may be my prospective marketing team on sADw.

Interesting tasks tomorrow, so more to report then......

Recovering.....

Yea, so I took the day off today to try and recover from some congestion.

I've taken olive leaf and a cold never developed but it hasn't kept the congestion at bay.
Although I didn't get out and about, I did do a presentation for the marketing meeting on Wednesday....but......that is all.

Background

Here's what we're talking about....

Too tired to get out of bed for breakfast...why?  Cause Film 4 decided to broadcast a great spooky in the wees.

The Night of the Demon!  It's a pretty good film. Hammer films, the classic horror gendra UK studio, would import a waning Hollywood star to be the lead.  In this case Dana Andrews, who must have given in to his personal demon, drink, about 6 times in the film.

We had an interesting seminar here at Charterhouse today.

In the meantime I was at Apple again trying to get my old iTunes library onto my new mac book.

Looks like I'll have to go off Apple planet and get 3rd party software to do that little thing.

During din I chatted with the conservational M&E expert dealing with the renovations in my wing of the Tudor mansion that is my home.

No that's not it.....but it's pretty!

Tonight only scored 21 on University Challenge.

Working away on project stuff this evening....all background.

One last thought.....

Three years ago now I designed my first production that used digital images for the majority of the scenic detail.

This is the first time I've noticed the above description in the production credits.

Video and Projection Design.......