So here I am trying to spin on a cranky old exercise bike! Click the image to see the movie.
Spinning the world away (again)
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Category Archives: Amuse-Bruce
My bug-out kit
As some of you know, I may need to go to the parental abode with very little notice. So here’s what I have with me almost all the time.
Before you ask, I have spare clothes at the parental abode.
[1] because I’m an academic, not necessarily to aid bug-out
[2] because a visiting lecturer once needed such an adaptor to connect his laptop to a Napier projector
Family misfortunes encore
Some of my reader might know that my mother has been in hospital. She was taken into Worcester Royal hospital on Friday 24 January due to severe abdominal pain, and had some procedures on Friday 31 January. These had to be delayed while various routine medications were still active. She was then transferred to the Alexandra hospital in Redditch. The Alex is the home of the specialist unit in Worcestershire that is best placed to handle my mother’s conditions.
I’ve been in Worcester since the afternoon of Monday 27 January. I’ve had to leave a lot of work in the very capable hands of colleagues at Napier, £eithChooses, Leith Central Community Council, Leith Harbour & Newhaven Community Council, New Town & Broughton Community Council and Community Councils Together on Trams. (I am doing some CC work remotely as I get snippets of time.) Huge thanks to all concerned! Continue reading
Bouncing in Bucharest (part 1)
Elly has been in Bucharest since very early on Tuesday. I flew out to meet her yesterday (Friday). My flight was due to take off at 19:00 but took off after 19:30, after a sudden gate-change from 4 to 18, because the place was at gate 17. A 3 hour 30 minute flight landed me in Bucharest Otopeni airport around 1am Romanian time. Here’s what happened since… Continue reading
What has Bruce been up to this weekend?
I’m not quite sure why I wanted to record this. Perhaps it’s to assuage some of my guilt at not being in the peoples’ vote/anti-brexit march yesterday. Anyway, this has been a relaxing weekend so far.
My reward for all of this is nut roast with roasted potatoes, onions, sprouts and carrots. You have been warned!
Saturday morning
- Spinning at LifesCycle. We cheated slightly by travelling by bus, due to the rain. I usually prefer to cycle there and back, as warm-up and cool-down from the lovely madness. (Elly and I are on the front-left bikes of that Facebook video.)
Saturday afternoon
- much-needed coffee and lunch
- catching up with personal and family finances, sadly neglected for a couple of weeks due to work-pressures
- washing our manky spinning gear. That’s the only downside!
- tidying my desk area after weeks of needing to let rubbish build up
Saturday evening
- avoiding watching Strictly Come Dancing
- writing a presentation on a project I’m about to finish, so I can demonstrate the outcomes to a high-powered audience. (I think I should not say what the project is just now, but I will blow my own trumpet as hard as I can when the work goes live.)
Sunday morning
- proofreading and commenting on a tender written by my ever-wonderful better half.
- much-needed coffee and lunch
Sunday afternoon
- New Town & Broughton community council website.
- Leith Harbour & Broughton community council website.
- Leith Central community council website.
- £eithChooses social media
Practical Democracy Project session 8
As usual, this post is an edited version of my tweets from the event. My asides are in blockquotes. Most links are to Twitter presences.
Good afternoon Twitter. I’m at the Practical Democracy Project number 8, in Glasgow’s Tron Theatre. It’s organised by Delib, and has hashtag #PracticalDemocracyProject. I hope to live-tweet so long as my laptop’s battery holds out.
Ben Fowkes is opening #PracticalDemocracyProject number 8. The programme is
- An introduction to Delib’s work
- Niamh Webster (Scottish Government)
- Ali Stoddart (Scottish Parliament)
- Vilte Vaitkute (Media Co-op)
- panel session.
Lunch is in there somewhere. There will be a round-up of the event emailed to participants. (I’ll share it how I can.)
Slow and painful
Yesterday I was at Delib‘s Practical Democracy project session 8 in Glasgow. I’ll blog about the event later. However, after several months of almost no exercise, I decided to cycle back to Edinburgh.
Usually, there is a tailwind when cycling this way. However, there was a strong headwind. That partly explains why I took over four hours peddling (over 6 hours including stops) to cycle 43 miles, why my phone’s battery went flat after 35 miles, why I took drink and toilet-breaks every 10 miles, and why my leg-muscles turned to cast iron before I got home. However, most of the explanation is I am a fat, unfit git.
Photos are below the cut. Continue reading
15 April: Random Bozo gets stuck
So my plan for today was
- 16:15 to 16:40 fly Amsterdam to Edinburgh
- 18:00 to 19:00 travel to community council meeting
- 19:00 to 21:00 take minutes at community council meeting
- 21:00 to 22:00 travel home.
That’s not how it went: Continue reading
13 April: winding up
So I planned to got to these:
- Speed Dating: discuss our ideas for a better Europe (10:00 to 10:30)
- Brexit Breakfast Briefing (10:30 to 11:30)
- Advanced principles in democracy: let’s challenge basic democracy and find a consensus (12:00 to 2:30)
- User experience = Supporter engagement: websites for political engagement (13:00 to 14:30)
- Where to from here? Redesigning democracy (16:00 to 18:00)
- Festival closing party (20:00 to 22:00)
Here’s how I’ve got on so far! Continue reading
12 April: little to report
I woke around 9am again, staggered to breakfast, and then crashed out again.
I next woke around 3pm, did some shopping, had lunch and then came back to my hotel to blog. You’re reading the results. It’s now 10:40. So I have not done any democracy events today. So sue me – this trip is meant to be a holiday! Part of being away from work (both academic and local democracy) is catching up on sleep. Nighty-night!
Digital evidence that Bruce might have a life 