Two weeks ago, Daniel visited us from his base in Amsterdam. Daniel and Damjan are ‘foodies’ and I like food, so we booked ourselves into Gordon Ramsay’s flagship restaurant on Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea.
We spent five hours there (7pm to 1am) on a Tuesday night. The artistically plated dishes were full great flavours and textures. The wait staff read our minds.
Daniel has a review and photos on his website so I now direct you there…
I like putting things in boxes and categories. I have mental boxes such as:
I feel uncomfortable when things drift between mental boxes. This is why I am considerably concerned about tomato based drinks. To me, drinks are in the ‘sweet’ box, as opposed to soups, which are generally ‘savoury’.
A tomato drink is not hot enough to be a soup and not sweet enough to be a drink, so I find it confusing.
Recently, I had a mental box problem to do with rhubarb. Damjan’s housemate, Niall, went to visit Nick. Nick gave Niall some home-grown rhubarb. Niall re-gifted it to Damjan, as everyone knows that Damjan likes to experiment with cooking the less common veggies.
Damjan and I pored over a number of candidate recipes: rhubarb and orange mousse and rhubarb fool. We finally settled on a monstrous hybrid of both: orange rhubarb fool with ice-cream.
We stewed the rhubarb with brown sugar, adding freshly squeezed orange juice and grated ginger. Then we dollaped it onto vanilla ice cream and served it with fresh ripe and sweet strawberries.
What a dessert! It was very delicious, tart and sweet, soft but textured.
Even as I enjoyed my dessert, I was feeling tense because of a mental box scramble. Rhubarb is a vegetable. I can’t go around eating vegetables for dessert.
The only solution, I have decided, is to reclassify rhubarb into my mental ‘fruit’ box. Such reclassifications are not unprecedented. For my whole life, tomatoes and cucumbers have been happily sitting in the veggie box, despite being fruits.
But this particular mental switch (rhubarb as fruit) has been more difficult than I expected. The problem is that rhubarb looks like celery, and there is nothing more vegetably than celery.
If I keep at it, I am sure I will get around this mental block. I know it is possible because after a short struggle, one of my favourite desserts is now carrot cake. The sheer yumminess of carrot cake has overwhelmed the boundaries of my boxes.
We had some golden sunshine this weekend. Damjan and I spent much of it indoors. Damjan is close to finishing his master work. I was preparing for a big presentation for a competition.
In the late afternoon, we rewarded ourselves with break, walking through the lushly green University Parks. We had just finished lunch and were now headed to a particular corner of the park. A few weeks earlier, we had staked out a mulberry tree. We saw the whitish-red fruit on it and that, give a few weeks, the fruit would ripen and darken.
Today, some of the fruit were ready. We were competing with wasps. Any berry with a wasp on it, we conceded. That left about twenty dark ripe berries for us.
By the time we were finished, the tree had served us satisfying sweet dessert. Our hands were covered in mulberry blood, bright and sticky. We didn’t mind, and squished the berry juice between our hands as we walked back to work.
Yesterday, our electric shower unit did something strange and inconvenient. Instead of water coming out of the showerhead, suddenly almost all the water was pouring out of a hole in the lower left corner of the wall unit.
After a thoroughly unsatisfactory shower, I padded back into the bathroom to investigate. The hole seems to have been designed. I poked my finger up into it and tried to find a flap or something that I could close. Nothing.
I then decided to seal the hole with electrical duct, thus forcing the water to go up to the shower head. I couldn’t find any tape in the house.
Then I tried shoving a ball of blu tack into the hole. This was unsuccessful. The blu tack seal was not watertight and the water continued to spurt out around the blue blob.
In my search for duct tape, I had come across tubes of sealant under the kitchen sink. I wondered if I was brave enough to use them to make a watertight seal.
By this time, I was getting late for work. However, I was on the scent of a trail now and I wanted to get to the end.
I hopped on the internet and found the website of Triton, the manufacturer of the shower unit. Here, I started to get answers.
Frequently asked question: When I turn on my electric shower water starts leaking out from the bottom of the unit, why?
If water is leaking from a clear plastic tube or small plastic elbow in the unit, then the Pressure Relief Device (PRD) has been activated. The most common reasons for the PRD to activate are that the showerhead has become blocked or there is a restriction in the shower hose.
That’s it! London’s water is stupidly hard. My cups of tea always carry a film of calcium. The showerhead must be blocked with lime scale.
I longed to solve the problem now but I had a teleconference with South Africa at 9am…
So I rushed to work, had my teleconference, another meeting, a teleconference with Dubai, found out that three team members (good friends) had just been made redundant, then another meeting.
After a depressed lunch commiserating with laid off colleagues, I went on the internet and paid for a new PRD to be posted to me First Class.
I worked late, got home to cook and eat dinner, then went on the internet again (what did we do before the WWW?) to find out how one goes about cleaning a showerhead.
I originally imagined that I had to do something like unscrew the showerplate and scrub it with a toothbrush. Then a colleague suggested soaking the showerhead in a lemon juice solution. My parents said vinegar would work too. I don’t have lemons at home. I do have vinegar, so I went downstairs to get a bucket and my bottle of vinegar.
Under the kitchen sink, right next to the bucket, were two packets of lime descaler! How fabulous.
I mixed the lime descaler with water and sunk the showerhead in the solution for half an hour. Then I wiggled the showerhead in a bowl of clean water, scrubbed it with a toothbrush for good measure, and was gratified to see lots of little brown bits sinking to the bottom of the bowl.
I had resigned myself to having baths for the next day or two while waiting for the new PRD to arrive so that I could replaced the tripped one. PRDs are ‘use once’ and need to be installed back into place.
Imagine my excitement, then, when my freshly cleaned showerhead started squirting out a respectable stream of water!
There is still some water (around a third of the total flow) coming out of the hole at the bottom. I think the only way to stop that is to replace the PRD. But while I wait for the spare one and while I take a couple of days to figure out how to install it, I will at least be able to have hot showers.
Hooray for DIY Joan!
By the time I had finished my dinner this evening, I still had 1.5 hours before bed time. I thought that maybe I would watch a DVD or even start some homework (I am trying to write an article abut sustainable film productions).
Instead I spent my evening helping my temporary flatmate, Cara, learn her lines for a play she’s performing next Tuesday. The play was written for Henry VIII so the language is ye-olde-and-hard-to-understand English.
I would say the line immediately before Cara’s character’s lines, and Cara would start reciting. We went through each verse around 15 times.
I found it interesting. It seemed very difficult. Even though I had the lines right in front of me, I still stumbled over sentences.
Cara is my temporary flatmate while my actual flattie, Aoife, is in New York, also performing in a play.
At my old house, my flattie Richard was an actor, and flattie Damian was a former actor before he became a catering manager.
The creative industries is the third largest employer in London. That explains why I keep meeting people working in film, broadcasting, publishing, music, advertising, the arts, design, fashion, and the performing arts, despite me being a boring engineer.
I have blogger’s block.
I am unsurprised that other people have coined the phrase ‘blogger’s block‘ well before me. It’s an obvious one, isn’t it.
I remember when I was first on the internet. I was trying to create a character for a text-based role playing game and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, someone’s already chosen the name ‘Gandalf’.’
My brother and I tried dozens of internet handles. We ended with ‘VampireSmurf’. If we waited another week, VampireSmurf probably would have been taken.
No longer am I surprised that every idea I have is already on the internet.
This is cool. Use namechk.com check the availability of your username of choice on a whole bunch of sites.
Wow. There’s a joanium on a site called PictureTrail. Otherwise, all those joaniums are me. joanium is probably the nearest thing I’ll ever have to an original internet thought.
Damjan and I were on a mission. We were at Kensington High Street on the hunt for Damjan’s rejuvenated summer wardrobe. The targets were:
Marks & Spencers was a gold mine. Within 15 minutes of browsing, we had bundled together six items and were heading to the change rooms so that Damjan could try them on.
‘That’s quite nice,’ I said, spotting a mannequin reclining on a high podium in the middle of the men’s department. The mannequin was sporting a light blue chequered short sleeved shirt. It looked chilled out, the very essence of summer.
Damjan went up to the mannequin and reached up to inspect the fabric. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think I like it too. Let’s find it.’
For three minutes, we dashed around the podium. There were a few similar shirts but nothing quite the same.
We found someone at the change room to help us.
‘Excuse me,’ Damjan said. ‘I’m interested in a shirt that a mannequin is wearing but I can’t find it.’
‘I’ll come and have a look for it,’ the assistant said, ‘but it might be out of stock.’
‘Well, the shirt on the mannequin is my size… If it is the last one, can we buy it?’
‘I think so but I’ll have to ask the floor manager.’
Damjan arrived at the podium where I was waiting, bringing with him the shop assistant, the floor manager and someone who happened to be nearby inspecting M&S stock.
Before I knew it, they had wheeled over a ladder and were trying to undress the mannequin.
‘I can’t get it off,’ the floor manager said, struggling with the sleeve.
‘Trying twisting his arm backwards,’ said the inspector.
‘Lift him up off the display,’ suggested the shop assistant.
‘All this for a shirt,’ the floor manager grumbled with a smile. ‘I’ll bet he’s worn this one for weeks… Got it!’
With a flourish, she removed the top, revealing a white t-shirt underneath. The blue shirt was passed down the chain of people to Damjan.
‘Great! I’ll try it on now.’ he said.
Thankfully, after all that trouble, it does fit. Damjan looks rather fetching in it. It complements his dark hair.
After work on Thursdays, I sometimes go to women’s football training. The training sessions are organised by volunteers from work. It’s a thoroughly nice bunch of people. If they weren’t jolly and forgiving, I wouldn’t have lasted as long as I have. I’ve never played team sports before so I don’t yet have that knack of knowing where I should be and how I can help out my team mates.
I do have the advantage of being fit and, as they said to me, ‘It’s good that you’re not afraid of the ball.’ So you’ll see me chasing the ball wherever it goes. When I am after the ball, I feel a bubble rising inside me that can only be released by heckling my opponent and shouting them down. I don’t think this is the ‘done’ thing, though, so I have to suppress my more violent instincts.
In one exercise, we were trying to score a goal with our coach, Joel, as the goal keeper. My team mate Kate did a massive kick that flew straight towards the goal. Joel dived and deflected it past me.
As he lay there, splayed on the grass, I swerved past him and yelled, ‘Kick hiiiiim!’
He leaped up and stared at me. ‘Wow, Joan. You are scary!’
I am informed that my LinkedIn profile is ‘70% complete’. To finish it off, I need two recommendations. This means I should ask two people to write a testimonial about their experience of working with me.
I haven’t bothered with this. I don’t mean to make use of LinkedIn.
However, something has made me revisit this decision. Last week I was spammed by James from a recruitment agency.
The way LinkedIn works is that if you’re not directly connected to somebody, you can only message them directly if you pay for a premium account. However, recruitment agent James has found a way around this. He requested to be my contact and in the field for putting in a personal message, he wrote:
Dear Joan
Apologies for the direct approach but I wanted to introduce myself to you and I am hoping you may be able to help me.
I work for a company called […], a recruitment consultancy that focuses on the sustainability space. I am currently working with a company that specialise in the provision of sustainability solutions, looking to grow their team in the built environment…
I would really value the opportunity to talk to you about this role and find out if you know anyone who could be interested, or indeed if you might be interested yourself! My contact details are: […]
Thanks and Best Wishes
James
I thought, ‘The nerve!’ Of course I won’t respond to this kind of spam, this abuse of LinkedIn.
Just before I deleted his message, I clicked on his name and found out that we have three degrees of separation (one of my contacts knows someone who knows him). He also has a glowing recommendation from one of his clients.
‘…James has exacting standards and is a fantastic communicator which are really appreciated both in terms of the search and selection process as well as the negotiation of final contracts. James acts with the integrity of both client and candidate ensure that the final deal is one which sets both parties off on the correct footing.’
This testimonial starts to make me think differently about James. Maybe, instead of being merely rude and untargeted, he is actually working hard and is using social networks innovatively to get results during difficult economic times.
Hmm. These recommendation things could be very powerful.
We were a couple of drinks in at the pub last week * and a colleague I had met for the first time that evening was getting angry.
One of the things he was angry about was a girl in his group, who worked only exactly the hours required of us (9am to 5:30pm), and yet she is well thought of by most people.
‘People like her, they’re good at self-promotion and talking themselves up,’ he complained. ‘But she doesn’t put in the hours.’
I was surprised to hear this. I know of this girl and have chatted to her a few times. I haven’t worked with her so I don’t know how ‘good’ she is. However, she does have an interesting personal and academic background and she seems to have a lot of initiative.
I started thinking, ‘Maybe… maybe there are people in my company who are upset about me too.’
Compared to other junior people, I am well known around the company. I hope this is because I do good work. In addition, I do try to meet people, keep in touch, make presentations and answer questions on the online company forums.
While I’m good at raising my profile, I hope I back this up by showing I have something worthwhile to contribute.
I am sure that there are people in the company who have something equally worthwhile to contribute, yet they aren’t getting the same attention because they’re not as comfortable at networking and self-promotion.
I’m sorry if people like me crowd them out. I do try very hard to direct questions and work to the right people and this means passing on leads to those who know more about a subject than me.
Despite this, though, it is conceivable that there are people who resent me the way this work colleague resents that girl.
I can’t do much about this except I am now reminded that I must be genuine and thoughtful: to speak when I am sure that what I say could be useful (not simply grandstanding), and give the quieter ones in the group the space to contribute.
* Not me, I don’t often drink at pubs. I don’t like the taste of alcohol and friends/colleagues are happy for me to have water and chips instead of beer.