Tenous but...

...an Internet connection nonetheless! I seem to have wirelessly latched the remora of my laptop to the soft, white underbelly of some other gentlemen or ladies wireless network.

Well, it seems that Manuela and I will have to meet later in the week due to shceduling cafuffles, but at least I heard back from her. Since my last post I also got a reply from an Italian fellow about working on a film noir script, but never got a call back as I was supposed to. Such is this business, hell - such are many businesses in which you have to deal with the meandering shitminds of the human species.

Tomorrow is day one of the new job and also when I shall head off to Bristol for a couple of days training. I shall take many a pretty picture, to be sure. I'm a bit surprised that I have to head all the way out to the West Coast for training on a database program but I'm not really complaining. It will be nice to have a private washroom (in the hotel) a few days prior to when I move across the compound and into my actual room, with it's precious private washroom, additional space, inset wardrobe and fewer house mates (the slice o' compound I'm in now has something like five and I heard the distinct, piercing cries of someones filth-oozing crotchling earlier...).

One unfortunate development is that I have discovered that all train, tube and coach services are suspended on Christmas Day. In a broad sense I can truly respect this way of ensuring that a larger portion of the population gets to enjoy a day off with their family. In a personal sense this is a bit sad, because it means I won't be able to visit anyone for Christmas that is outside of walking distance because I'd need to get back to work at 9am on the 26th. So yes, I shall be spending Christmas day awwwwww awooooone.

But shucks howdy, I think the heart shall continute to beat, yes? Plus I can still eke out some silver by going to the Hyde Park Fair on the 24th and on the 25th I think I'll just set aside the day to satisfaction - cooking myself a meal I can truly enjoy or perhaps treating myself to eating out some where nicer than the chicken hut I foolishly allowed to lure me inside today with the promise of a two quid chicken lunch that was so greasy, a drumstick leaped out of the box and tried to sell me a bunch of pre-release DVD's stored in a fruit crate.

Holy run on sentence....

Anywho, to finish for the day I thought I'd attach this picture I took during my last days in Reading. This is one of the many, many war monuments in England which are generally attributed to a regiment/division/battalion which was recruited from the neighborhood. What made this one interest me was that it was so new - the base underneath this particular lion was inscribed with dedications to men and women who had died in Kandahar and other such places in the last five years. The sense of continuity stretching back from this lion to ones I saw in central London that were dedicated to men who had died forging the British empire was a strong one which held me in awe for a few silent moments. Time may only be something we've all agreed to believe in so as to structure our existence, but given that it is grounded in so many people and places who genuinely existed I cannot help being sent into a state of awe when I allow myself to really think it over.