System shock
When you add the 45 minute walk to work to the gardening style exertions (ok, so it was medium to light mowing) of the weekend, well it appears that my body doesn't know what's hit it. Luckily, I'll be able to put a damper on this apparent burst of healthiness by having a couple of glasses of brewed liquid (and I don't mean tea) this evening after work. I've had something like a single can of lager since I returned from Edinburgh. In fairness, I didn't drink a great deal while over there, though there were a few nights when I hit the whisky - purely for medicinal purposes, you must understand. No, seriously. My voice was going and my throat hurt. One apparent remedy for this was single malt whisky. It appears that my tonsils have good taste.

Pretender to the crown
I'm currently listening to the soundtrack to Jurassic Park III. Where the first two soundtracks were John Williams, this one is Don Davis, using some of JW's themes and scoring the rest himself. I've said before that you can feel the hand of a writer in their work and in this case, I think you can feel the absence of the true writer in some of the reworkings of the original Jurassic Park music. While John Williams frequently employs various tricks, combined with a simplicity of touch, his musical impersonator in this film seems to be oversimplifying certain moments. I think it's the problem of stepping into another man's shoes. Where Don Davis has the chance of writing something of his own, it's fairly nicely done, though nothing magical. Where the original theme needs working in, it feels akward. The tempo isn't right and the endings are occasionally blunt.

There is only one John Williams.

Well, actually, there's that guitarist called John Williams, but there's only one film composer called John Williams... or at least, the film composer called John Williams cannot be emulated. Okay, so he can - David Arnold does a good job from time to time, but John Williams himself is still unique.

Fools rule
What is it with people in administration? Does the ability to set rules make people go power crazy? I know that I'm something of a control freak and stickler for detail. I know that I sometimes have everything sewn up in advance, but that doesn't mean that I've lost the ability to be pragmatic. This month, it appears that everyone around me is setting rules and policies that are there for having rules' sake. I'm not entirely convinced that pragmatism is at the heart of the draconian limitations being established around me. Having said that, we all fear change, so perhaps the bigger problem is that I'm noticing changes. Coming back to the humdrum world after a month's play in Edinburgh is always going to seem odd, and the maintenance of the status quo would make the transition back into the real world a little easier.

I don't suffer fools gladly, and my own natural arrogance (not that I'm proud of it) means that I'm inclined to declare a lot of fools.

Today, I forgot to bring a key to work. Since I wasn't driving, I brought the set of keys for my house which don't have the car keys on. I forgot that this particular set of keys doesn't have the office key on too. So, I can't get in and out of the office. While we have spare keys, which I could borrow for the day, I'm not allowed to borrow a spare. I have to borrow one from a colleague if I need to nip out of the office - say to the toilet. Great. Apparently it's okay to be told:

"I can appreciate that this will be a hassle for you today, but you might remember it tomorrow."

It's been over 12 years since I was at school. I think I was treated like more of an adult there. Still, according to our company policy:

"Stress provides motivation and achievement."

So, perhaps this is all part of some sort of system to rile me into doing something. Resign?

Maybe the people from parking control have been sending evil telepathic messages to the people of Newcastle in my absence to make everyone behave like a bunch of morons. Hooray for everyone!

Maybe I'm just sore
Perhaps I'm in a mood because I didn't win a competition on Radio 2 this morning. I awoke to the sound of Jonathan Ross doing the breakfast show, which confused me, since I immediately assumed it was about 10am on a Saturday, which made no sense, given that I was pretty sure it was Monday morning. Then I remembered that JR is relieving Mr Wogan for the week. Working out that I had time to get to work, but that it wasn't the weekend, so I'd better get up sharpish, I listened in to their competition to win a radio. You had to come up with a headline for the news story about an old woman who successfully tackled a burglar. She basically talked him into such a state of boredom that he fell asleep. Once asleep he was easy prey for the police. She was telling him about her family and showing him pictures, hence the immense boredom she created. I thought my headline, which I texted into the show, was a real winner, but they didn't even read it out... aaaah.

Here it is: