Tag: From my diary

Time to tidy the blog.  I thought I’d go through all the linked blogs and check they still exist and are still active.  Not all of them were!  A reduced list appears to the right of this post.  I do read quite a few of these, although more are reference sources than anything else.

I also removed one or two that seemed to have drifted off the subject for which I added them.  Of course I have political views, like everyone else, but I try to keep them out of this place.   I don’t link to the political blogs that I read.   This is because I tend to evaluate a blog by what it links to.  If I go to some blog, I try to work out whether the author is someone I want adding stuff to my mind.  A glance around the posts is one clue; the blogroll is another.

Now I don’t really want people closing their eyes to what I say because I happen to link to some blog that is a banner-waver for some political position.  This is not a political blog, after all, and people of every political persuasion should be able to find material to read here and without insult to their politics.

What happened to summer?  It looks like November out there; cold, grey, windy.  Driving to work this morning at 8am everyone had headlights on!

Still I shan’t have to do that again for a bit.  Today I resigned and walked out of my new job, which I started last week.  I lasted five whole days!  The trouble was that, despite telling them I needed to work with people, I was stuck alone in a dingy office with a broken phone.  All my colleagues were on the other side of a locked door somewhere (I never found out where), and emails to them were often not returned.  Every so often someone — who gradually morphed into my boss — rushed in, dumped some stuff on me, regardless of what I was working on, and rushed out again.   (I believe this is called “seagull management”!)  Even dafter was that the admin at the agency was messed up, so that I wasn’t even getting paid. 

After a miserable morning something snapped, and I left. I didn’t want to go — heaven knows I need an income like everyone else — but it just wasn’t going to get any better.   I was mildly amused, however, to find those responsible blaming me for walking out of the absurd situation they had created.  It showed again that I had made the right decision.  However, right decision or not, I feel rather bruised.  No-one wants to walk away from money in this climate.  I suspect I shan’t be good for much this afternoon.

On a more positive note the typesetter of the Eusebius book has done the Coptic chapter — and done it rather excellently!  He’s also done the letter of Latino Latini to Andreas Masius (talking about the discovery of the full text of the work in the 1500’s, which was then sadly lost again before it could be published), plus the end material, and made a very good job of it.  Indeed the Eusebius is starting to look like a book, which is very encouraging.  We still have a way to go, but we are getting there.

I must remember to ask the typesetter if (a) I can mention his name and (b) if I can credit him in the book!

Less good is the discovery that he never got some of my emails from last week.  Email is wonderful; until it goes wrong.  Not sure how I’ll handle that.  I wish there was a way to set Google mail to ask for a return receipt.

Two people over the weekend bought copies of the CD of the Additional Fathers, bless them.  That helps offset some of the pain from the proofing costs last week.

If you want to go to Egypt, there is some rather good news.  EasyJet is to start flights to Luxor from Gatwick.  Jane Akshar’s blog tells us:

 EasyJet to start Gatwick flight to Luxor – www.travelweekly.co.uk: “Services will depart Gatwick twice a week, on Monday and Wednesday, with passengers bound for the Valley of the Kings and Nile cruises.

At present, only charter carriers serve Luxor. Thomson, Thomas Cook and Monarch each fly once a week from Gatwick, while charters also operate from Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol.

EasyJet’s flights will raise capacity sharply.

Its pricing, leading in at £127.81 return including tax, is likely to take business from existing carriers on the route.

When I go to Luxor, I fly that route.  EasyJet may be budget, it may be cheap and cheerful.  But let me tell you, as one that has flown by the charter airline First Choice (now merged with Thomson) that NOTHING could be as uncomfortable as First Choice.  I am by no means the tallest of men (nor, I should add, a rival of Napoleon), but five hours in one of their over-cramped seats was unendurable a second time.

What I want is a carrier  that actually allows me to travel in comfort.  If EasyJet can manage this, they will wipe the floor with the charter airlines.

Jane Askar also raises the issue of renting a flat in Luxor.  This might be rather more comfortable — I don’t know — than staying in hotels such as the Jollie Ville (which is rather shabby in the rooms, despite its reputation).  One reason I did not return to Luxor last year was that the memory of the upset stomach of the previous year lingered.  Indeed it still lingers, so I probably won’t go this year either.  Believe me, it is no fun at all to be afraid to break wind except when sat on the loo! 

But how does one eat, if living in a flat?

 

Everyone must be on holiday.  The usual forums are quiet, and the volume of emails has dropped to almost nothing.  Not that I am complaining, you understand, but it is curious. 

Everyone, evidently, has better things to do than sit in front of the evil machine.  There’s a lesson there for those of us still doing so.

Turn off your computer and go outside and do something!

PS: You can tell it’s summer here in England — it’s still raining, but it just isn’t cold.