Chaos, memory, interactivity, work and Radio 2

Wow, what a day. Not mine particularly - it's just been a continuation of my summer job (of which more later).
But the news! To think that there could have been 9 or 10 aircraft bombed in flight scarcely bears thinking about. I can remember how I felt on 9/11 when some of the wilder rumours suggested not only aircraft in the US had been hijacked but also several in Europe (although I can't remember the detail of these rumours now). Glad my route home isn't very close to an airport, although traffic was fairly busy.

I've started refreshing my memory on a number of fronts, including basic HTML tags - hence the new 'links' section - and that I had read (and meant to read more of) another blog - Maggi Dawn's, which I have now linked to. Whether I get a chance to get back to it and start interacting with it... but yes, I know that's the point of blogs, despite today's comment from Chris Evans likening at least his blog if not blogs generally to Plato's Symposium, that each post should take things onward rather than dialoguing or turning into a 'tennis match'. All of which sounds intellectual but primarily of course he doesn't have the time to interact with over 100 comments per day (so far - after only 4 blog entries! Still, I don't have a primetime national radio show on which to promote these gruntlings - in fact I've only told my wife about it!)

Thinking about it, Nick Robinson's Newslog operates in a similar fashion (or at least, it did when I used to read it regularly) albeit with the odd nod to interactivity. Perhaps it's more about a 'BBC style' of blogging as opposed to what I assume is the 'proper' or 'true' or 'only' way to really blog - you put on stuff you've read, written, thought, others post responses, you interact with some, all or none and build a community of sorts... Experienced bloggers are welcome to enlighten me on this point (or indeed any point - it will annoy me to be corrected, but not as much as being wrong and not being corrected! As our transatlantic cousins might say, 'Go figure'!)

I find that I have interesting thoughts on which to muse on the blog when I am far from able to post them - e.g. in the car on the way to work this morning, some 10 or 11 hours ago. Haven't a scooby what they were now. Still I was reflecting on the fact that I am 2 years into probably a long period of study and training before I enter my chosen(?) career, yet find myself thinking, if the summer job that I am doing (at the institution where I study) came up as a permanent role, would I apply for it? It would probably be interesting for a bit but I suppose it's really a distraction from using my copious skills (irony alert). And I wouldn't want to see the present incumbent (on sick leave) actually leave the job because he's so good at it and an asset to our little community. But I probably do need to make more of an outlet in my life for doing some sort of work with my hands as well as all the word-shifting that I do. In fact, I wanted (still do) to take up woodcarving, something my dad did a lot of, but haven't yet translated it into action - although I do have a number of woodcarving tools, and the 'trunk' of an old Christmas tree drying in our loft, and even a vague plan as to what I would start with - a chess set. Oh yes, aim high (though it's a kind of Art-Deco-y era one that's based on cubes - I think the designer was Schmidt).

While working, I have been listening to Radio 2 for virtually the whole day. As I'm working by the hour, and have had lack of motivation to get up (yes I know that doesn't square with my comments above but part of the work is getting boring) - anyway, I haven't been leaving till midmorning. That means that I rarely catch Wogan, so it's a diet of Ken Bruce, Jeremy Vine (or Clive Anderson while JV is on hols), Steve Wright and Chris Evans. Ken takes me back to days of a twice weekly trip across the Central Belt to perform a 2 hour task because the powers that be had closed the equivalent department on our Lothians site (when I worked for an electronics company). The lunchtime show is often interesting although I do tend to mentally switch off when it's apparent that the producers just want to engineer some conflict among people with opposing points of view (e.g. today, should Maggie Thatcher get a state funeral when she goes?). Steve Wright is also nostalgic for me, going back almost half my life to a hospital cleaning job! And Chris Evans does remind me of his days on TFI Friday but seems to have calmed down a bit. Anyway, all that to say this: you know when you get a song stuck in your head because it's the first or last thing you hear in the morning. Well I have had one or other of R2's top playlist songs going round for days, because I hear them 2 or 3 times a day - sometimes in consecutive shows. Presently the Scissor Sisters are revolving round my head, despite their protestations that they don't feel like dancing. If it's not them it'll be the Rolling Stones biggest mistake, or some other song that I haven't managed to match band and title to but still feel that if I never hear it again, it'll be too soon. So why do I keep listening to the network? Mostly for the bits inbetween. e.g. On Ken Bruce today, I actually counted my score on Popmaster, for about the first time - it never seemed worth it as I have reasonably little knowledge of obscure (or not so..) bands and songs, but I achieved 18 points on one of the rounds today which was miraculous. OK so it wouldn't often win, especially against the guy who got 33 of the max 39, but it made me smile and even raise a celebratory fist!

I've shied around giving too much personal detail, as mentioned yesterday. Anyone who has a view on this angle (especially given that I am actually writing and publishing a blog!) please post - or even if you don't have a view. It certainly makes it trickier if I want to refer to family or work people or situations, though there will no doubt be issues over putting names on the web without consent.

Tonight I'm trying to get to bed earlier - not too tricky as it was 3am or after yesterday! As long as I don't keep surfing...