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Had an email mid-afternoon confirming our booking in Bordeaux for the end of the week after next, followed three minutes later by another email cancelling our Lyon booking. The trouble with not really knowing a city, though, is that you don’t know what’s a good area and what isn’t, so hunting for an alternative online wasn’t easy. Eventually I found one that looked quite nice and booked and got an on-screen confirmation, but an hour later the agent emailed back to cancel but promised to hunt down another, which they did, and booked me into it and charged my credit card without even letting me know in advance. I should have got stroppy with them, I suppose, but actually I’m just glad to make something booked, and it’s one of the other hotels I’d been looking at anyway, so hopefully it’ll be OK.

I’m in the middle of all that pre-going-away busy-ness at the moment. Lots of proofing and commissioing to do, and chasing up some pictures that were due three and a half months ago but still have not arrived. I’ve put the piece back again and again and again but this time it really has to go in, so it’s getting rather urgent.

Came home and carried on working, listening to soothing music on the radio. I’m finding Classic FM highly listenable at the moment. Very relaxing and cheery, expecially if you have it on quiet in the background. It’s difficult to do that with the clockwork radio, as its gears sound like they’re breathing through an iron lung so you have to have the volume pretty normal, but on my inherited Roberts set, which was built in 1974 and if stuffed full of valves it sounds all warm and rounded off.

I had an appointment before going into the office and went in via a trip back home to email some bits and pieces (screenshots from my Linux PC, mainly) to one of the Hands On guys so didn’t get to my desk until just after noon. My poor PC was having a bit of a trauma and continued to do so for the rest of the day, crashing at least six times before I gave up counting. I think it’s having trouble with the cancer busting thing it’s running.

I checked my voicemail and there was a message from the BBC asking me to do a spot on a consumer show about the Nimda virus that’s apparently doing nasty things to servers at the moment, but I was too late anyway as by the time I called them the programme had finished and the producer had gone out to lunch. About an hour later LBC called and I duly promised to pop in and do a spot at the end of Drivetime on my way home.

It was nice to see Peter again back from his holidays. I did the piece, met the doctor for the first time (he who does the equivalent of my show on a Wednesday) and then dashed off to Liverpool Street for the 1918 train.

…which was delayed. Along with everything else. Signal problems on the Southend line, apparently, so they stuck all the Southend people on the Chelmsford trains so they could get off at Shenfield and catch buses, and crammed us in as tight as they could. Most unpleasant. It was the first time in years I’ve been on a train where people have been standing between you and the person opposite.

We limped along the track to Shenfield as half a dozen empty trains overtook us at speed and everyone shook their heads, but at least I got a good hour and a quarter’s work done before Chelmsford.

I had been intending to pack this evening. I won’t have time tomorrow night and I wanted to pop around to mum’s to loan her my notebook on Friday, but I got home so late that after eating I really didn’t have time. Things are going to be rushed. I can tell.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 19th, 2001 at 10:14 am and is filed under Journal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.