Fear Itself

I haven’t done this before. Last week I quoted from Roosevelt and as part of checking the accuracy of my quotation reviewed his inaugural address, delivered on the fourth of March 1933. That’s coming up on 77 years ago. I was struck by the relevance of his comments, of the stark religous flavour of an address given by a man so often buoyant and amiable; with broad strokes Roosevelt illustrated how he intended to work as president and identified clearly and with great perception the nature of the challenges faced then, and, of course with the benefit of present sight, now.

Trepidation

I started a new job this morning. After about two and a half years in the old one it’s time to move on. In case you’re not aware, I have been working as a Senior Monitoring Officer for the London Borough of Newham since 2007. Newham is an East London borough situated just North of Thames as it winds its way past the Millenium Dome, the Surrey Docks, now Canary Wharf, and out to sea. SMO is a little bit of a misnomer; in many ways I served to provide performance information and related data so those of you in the public sector will know all about that.

But what am I doing now?

Close of Play

It’s here; the end, or at least the beginning of the end.

Shrove

Today was pancake day.

I’m not going to say a great deal about it really. Only that initially I forgot all about it. When I remembered I quickly learned a very important lesson.

Moving On

This is my last week in my current post. I’m not sure why it would happen today, but this morning a sense of loss and excitement settled on me like ash; almost imperceptibly weightless yet stark against clean clothes. It’s an odd sensation. I suppose it could be fear.

Paddington Station

I took a trip in to Paddington today to collect my mother-in-law and her friend Tina. They had just arrived from the United States that very morning, although not by train. The vast majority of their journey was conducted under the auspices of North West and took place within a shapely aircraft produced by those wonderful people at Boeing. Specifically a Boeing 767 which, confusingly for many, is considerably smaller than a Boeing 747, a true jumbo jet if ever there was one.

My own travel was almost as easy as being flown. At least it was after I discovered that my mobile phone, a Sony Ericsson C903, includes an efficient route finding programme called, easily enough, Navigator. It was that discovery that brings me to my topic for today. Satellite Navigation systems or Sat Nav’s.

Catching Up

It is not without come considerable feelings of guilt and mispleasure that I must admit the lapse in my effort to update the Big Hungry Giant every day. If you noticed then thank you.

Let’s see what we can do to get back on track. If you have suggestions about the sort of things you would like to see more of here then let me know. Big HUngry Giant remains a little too amorphous at the moment.

Almost Walking

My daughter is coming up to eleven months old and with the aid of a walker is proudly toddling about the place. It’s wonderful. I’m not sold on the idea that she herself realises how momentous a step this is. To see her standing upright, knuckles white and smile broad, taking uncertain steps with increasing confidence is a great pleasure. Like so many events I am witness to at present it stirs up thoughts about child development, education and the ever-so-slightly-uncertain future that youngsters face.

Quiet Sundays

As a youth I was often told that Sunday was a day of rest. As an adult I have learned that this isn’t the whole truth. Some of it seemed pretty straight forward and then turned out to be anything other than simple. Take the injunction against buying things on Sundays for instance. As a child this meant that you don’t stop at the Supermarket, you could only use the petrol, later diesel, in the tank and if you didn’t have some desired comestible, you went without. Period. Credit goes to the parent here, we followed this rule religiously (yes I see the humour there) and as an adult the habit remains. But what does it really mean to keep the Sabbath Day holy in 2010?

The Bostonians

What an epic sense of relief? Not relief to have finished; relief to have begun. Henry James has, to my view, climbed to sit in the lonely company of the other authors who are, I consider, capable of ending a book appropriately. The Bostonian’s gentle paragraphs, characters, scenes, ideas and plot fell, with delightful tenderness, through my eyes like rain on the desert. I cannot say enough to recommend this book, nor to express my personal sense of gratitude that I have been led to return to the literature of this period. You don’t find too many identified as an interlocutress in the popular fiction of today!