Many people away - the past week at work

Monday

Jubilee holiday - big family dinner (roast lamb); several bottles of Gigondas 2001 and two Sauternes 1996; the afternoon passed in an alcoholic haze.

Tuesday

Jubilee holiday - in the evening there was live music and a sing-song on the village playing field (half a mile away but I could see and hear it perfectly from the house).  I went over for the lighting of the beacon.  Everyone very happy and inebriated.

Wednesday

Arriving at the office I sent briefings by e-mail to the Admin team although they sit only a few feet away (if I just ask them to do things they often forget).

Many people away this week, so that the offices were quiet.

Printing a new briefing paper has gone wrong and I requested a meeting with the printer.  They asked me to their premises to show me the state of the documents already printed, and when I got there I found they had arranged a lunch for me - sandwiches and orange juice.  They were very apologetic and anxious to try to rebuild their reputation (I was polite to them but also cool, and not at all keen to give them any more work).

Thursday

All I really did today was reply to e-mails.

Friday

At the station this morning I met Tim Watts (who is Development Manager for the Institute) and we caught a train to London.  Tim Watts is in his late twenties, orange hair, face covered in pale freckles.  All he seems to want to talk about are his young children (both toddlers) so it was a boring hour and a half.

We arrived in London and made our way to Head Office.  Everyone warns that the place is a nest of vipers, even people who work there.  Institute Director Vijay Singh had told Tim and myself to be very careful about who we talked to and what we revealed about the Institute's work.

Having been to Head Office several times I am beginning to appreciate the culture of the place, in particular the ritualistic kafkaesque way in which nothing is ever done.

We were taken to a meeting room in the basement, a bare room with utilitarian tables and chairs and on one wall two large oil paintings in elaborate gilt frames - former panjandrums in the organisation, presumably relegated to this room because their ideas have fallen from favour.

Kevin B and James T met us.  They are researchers who work for Alec Nussbaum (who is supposedly scheming to take over the Institute and eject Vijay Singh - just as Vijay Singh is supposed to be scheming to take over the Nussbaum empire at Head Office).  They were both vapid and ineffectual.

The meeting ended with no definite decisions being made and no real outcomes being decided upon.

I took the afternoon as holiday and stayed in London while Tim W returned to the office.