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It was all doom and gloom on the radio as I woke up, with the FBI warning the world that the Internet was facing the biggest threat since its inception from the ‘Code Red’ virus. Now usually I don’t pay much attention to these, but for Radio 2 to be talking about it you know it must be serious … or blown out of all proportion. Anyway, I erred on the side of caution and logged on at just gone half six to back up my sites. They’re on servers in California, which shouldn’t feel the worst of the effects for another day or so (allowing for time differences), but it’s best to be safe. What with dropped lines and whathaveyou, even at that quiet time of the morning, I ended up leaving home just after 8.15 and arrived in a hot little room in Aldgate East four minutes late for my 9.30 course.

There was no air conditioning. This room, with squeaky chairs that drowned out most of what anyone was saying, was the training equivalent of a manufacturing sweatshop. The windows faced the sun and hardly opened, and every time a flip-chart page had been filled, trainer Harry blue-tacked it to the glass. By mid-afternoon he had 19 pages on the walls and windows and we were too hot to go on. He sent us home with homework which, in the tradition of homework will be done on the train back into London tomorrow.

It was a real luxury catching the 1612 home. I got a comfy seat by an open window and typed out an email to publisher Joyce outlining the bits of the contract I didn’t like (like the clause that effectively means I can’t write for computer magazines any more if I write the book).

We shot through every station between London and Chelmsford, which never happens on the later trains.

It was baking in the car so I went to the gym for a swim, but didn’t do as many lengths as I would have liked. The pool was full of kids who were jumping around on the lane ropes while their parents stood in the middle of the lanes and blocked your way.

I gave up and sat in the steam room, which kind of negates the reason for going - to get cool.

Sky News was on in the changing room. Apparently the Queen Mother is suffering from heat exhaustion, which they’re saying might have some affect on her birthday celebrations on Saturday. What a 101-year-old woman was planning to do for her birthday anyway I can’t imagine. I don’t think it’ll have been energetic enough for heat exhaustion to have put much of a dampner on things.

Came home and spent the evening writing some more of the book in anticipation of contract objection feedback. It’s so nice getting a decent evening.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2001 at 4:11 pm 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.