What are you doing on your day off? Or what would you do, if you had one?
I took the kids to school, then went back to bed for an hour or so, then did some web surfing whilst listening to the new Yeah Yeah Yeah's album (which starts with a couple of exceptional tracks, then peters out a little bit - not at all bad overall, though).
Then, I went for a walk around my old college - which is only over the wall at the end of the close, so not much effort required, and it's not like I don't see the bit of it closest to us every day; but they've erected a huge new 'Gateway Building' on the far side, a great, three-storey oblong of glass and slate designed to make the institution more appealing to visitors - at least, until they progress to the series of 1960's and 70's edifices with crumbling concrete and peeling paintwork that constitutes the rest of the campus. The strangest thing about the new construction is that they've left a remnant of the building that used to be in its place standing right next to it - the stage of the old Princess Margaret Hall, now, bereft of annexe, looking like it should be hosting an open-air concert. The stage where I once stood and performed rag week skits, the hall where the 18-year romance between myself and m'lovely wife first blossomed (that is, where we first became a couple; we didn't desecrate it with insalubrity). About a year ago, when they were part way through demolishing it, I stood amidst the dust and broken glass, remembering all the college balls that had been held there, and thinking how small it looked with most of the walls missing. I should have taken a photo of the stage today, detached and tarpaulin-swaddled. It's a bizarre sight. Perhaps they are preserving it for posterity. It might get a blue plaque.
Anyway, got to go and pick the kids up soon. Then I need to do some tidying up, we've got the wife of the Iranian Minister of Culture round for dinner.
I took the kids to school, then went back to bed for an hour or so, then did some web surfing whilst listening to the new Yeah Yeah Yeah's album (which starts with a couple of exceptional tracks, then peters out a little bit - not at all bad overall, though).
Then, I went for a walk around my old college - which is only over the wall at the end of the close, so not much effort required, and it's not like I don't see the bit of it closest to us every day; but they've erected a huge new 'Gateway Building' on the far side, a great, three-storey oblong of glass and slate designed to make the institution more appealing to visitors - at least, until they progress to the series of 1960's and 70's edifices with crumbling concrete and peeling paintwork that constitutes the rest of the campus. The strangest thing about the new construction is that they've left a remnant of the building that used to be in its place standing right next to it - the stage of the old Princess Margaret Hall, now, bereft of annexe, looking like it should be hosting an open-air concert. The stage where I once stood and performed rag week skits, the hall where the 18-year romance between myself and m'lovely wife first blossomed (that is, where we first became a couple; we didn't desecrate it with insalubrity). About a year ago, when they were part way through demolishing it, I stood amidst the dust and broken glass, remembering all the college balls that had been held there, and thinking how small it looked with most of the walls missing. I should have taken a photo of the stage today, detached and tarpaulin-swaddled. It's a bizarre sight. Perhaps they are preserving it for posterity. It might get a blue plaque.
Anyway, got to go and pick the kids up soon. Then I need to do some tidying up, we've got the wife of the Iranian Minister of Culture round for dinner.
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