Nick Jordan

Brunel’s achievements revisited. Photographer David White set out, armed with reproduction equipment, to recreate some of Robert Howlett’s (the guy who took that famous photo of Brunel in front of the enormous chains) pictures. The results are very beautiful and well worth three minutes of your time.

One of the pleasures of working in the City, as I now do, is that I’m within spitting distance of a lot of cool stuff. Since I have a nice new camera, and because I think it might be fun to do, I intend to spend some of my lunch hours having a good poke around and taking some pictures. I may well post some of them here.

I hope that I’ll be able to find some real gems down some of the little side streets, as well as on the larger roads. I’m not much of a photographer, as many of my friends can testify, but the practice can only improve things.

I checked my camera this morning, as I want to take some photos later today, and discovered that it was dead. I’ve had it for years, so it owes me nothing. Anyway, I popped out to the shops and picked up a rather nice Panasonic FX37, which is small enough that I’ll actually carry it with me and, hopefully, use it a lot.

I’m still charging the battery, so I haven’t had a chance to play with it yet, but I’ll be using it later and uploading the photos to Flickr at some point, so I’ll report back then.

Update: I have now had a chance to play and upload some photos and, overall, I’m very impressed. It’s going to take ages for me to get to grips with all the different modes and settings, though.

Yesterday I went with friends to the Original Reenactors Market, where I had a good look at all the shiny things, drooled over some exquisite but very expensive crossbows and bought myself the pocket watch that I saw last year but didn’t have the cash for at the time. Not really anything to do with re-enactment but it’s a nice thing and I’m very glad I bought it.

Afterwards we had a trip to a cool fabric store in Finchley, followed by a nice meal in good company, a cab ride home and much-needed sleep. All in all, a very successful and enjoyable day.

Exoplanets finally come into view. This is something I’ve been waiting for my whole life. How much of a geek am I?

The first week in my new job (which has, overall, been pretty good) has had an unexpected side effect. For some reason, probably the change of routine and the stress of starting again somewhere new, I haven’t been sleeping very well. As a result I’ve cancelled the plans I had for this weekend and I’m spending it quietly at home, just resting and catching up on my sleep. It’s a bit of a shame not to be away and doing fun stuff with my friends but I really don’t think I’d have been good company anyway.

Today was my first day in my new job. I’ve spent the day trying to remember people’s names, re-familiarising myself with Windows (I haven’t used it for three years), doing some induction stuff and reading documentation. A pretty typical first day in a new company, basically, which has left my head going round and round.

The fun really started when I left the office. Some friends of mine were meeting in a pub nearby but I decided I’d rather just head home and crash, so I made my way to Liverpool Street station only to find that there was some sort of points problem just outside, which meant most of the trains were delayed. When my train finally deigned to put in an appearance so many people surged towards it that it was obvious I wasn’t likely to get on. Instead, I got home by tube and bus, which was pretty unpleasant on a drizzly November night.

So here I am, home rather later than usual and about to collapse in a heap in front of the TV. A good plan, I reckon.