The Old Abnormal

I'm planning to go into work next Friday. The second time since lockdown began. The first was a little over a month ago, partly because my manager was in and we hadn't seen each other for four months and partly because someone was leaving. This time the manager is in but, more importantly, I've yet to meet the member of staff who joined our small team in May and has met no-one in the flesh yet. 

No pressure, my manager says, aware I suppose that infection rates are creeping up nationally and in the borough we work for. A long way from local lockdown levels, but still higher than a month ago. The office has been made as covid-secure as is feasible. Half the desks and meeting rooms taped off and the touchdown areas and 'burger booths' too. Cutlery has been removed from the kitchen, as well as all but two of the chairs. Smaller meeting rooms can only have one person in, which makes them telephone booths, effectively, and even in the largest - where we have previously accommodated 45 people in comfort around small tables - we are now only allowed 6 at a time. 

These are the things that will stop people going 'back to work' in the way that has recently been encouraged by HMG, stressing about the financial impact on central London shops and, in the long term, the value of commercial property. But even they have only said employers should bring us back  if they can do so safely - apparently unaware that we live in an era of hot desks and open plan, without even those strange dividers covered in blue fabric that used to be ubiquitous in open plan offices (I miss those actually. They weren't so high that you couldn't talk if you stood up, and you could pin doodles to them). An era of shared printers, with one kitchen on each floor and three microwaves for a whole thousand person building. 

So I'm guessing most organisations will be be like mine - about a quarter to one fifth of people will be allowed in regularly, and those in customer (in our case resident) facing roles will be prioritised. 

London seems especially short of tourists at the moment too, and however much we like to whinge about having to wait for them to take photographs of their loved ones against the backdrop of the London eye when we just want to get across the bridge to Waterloo, there is a great financial and cultural gap when they're not here. It's good for a city to have people in it who are just there to look. 

Eventually, I suppose, property might stabilise. Those businesses who need people in will need more office space to distance, at the same time that those who realise pretty much all their staff can work from home give up their leases. Other buildings will be repurposed as housing. 

But shops are in for a hammering I'm afraid. 20% of the usual trade will not support them all, and coffee chains are already closing branches. Gift and card shops and coffee shops seem likely to take the worst hit - but sheer proximity drives clothes spending too, as does having to do the whole smart casual thing. And that's before you consider that people are bracing themselves and their finances for a second wave and possible recession, their confidence that tomorrow will be like today shaken by the fact it hasn't been. 

On the other hand 20% of office staff doesn't mean 20% of people. Even in Westminster and Kensington there is a resident population who need shops. Schools and museums are reopening and teachers will be in, builders barely stopped (and there will be more work for builders if offices need to be repurposed) shop workers must buy from each other occasionally, some cleaners and tube drivers worked right through and medical staff have been increased and are trying to get the business as usual stuff done before the winter and a potential second wave. 

If the second wave hasn't actually started. At the moment we're at the 'its probably increased testing that makes it look like that' stage but, realistically, France and Spain and Germany and Portugal have seen a second wave. We can mitigate it, flatten the curve, try to keep it from the most vulnerable, and those are all things well worth doing, but we are not really in control here. 

In a strange sort of way I think that's why there is so much blame going round. It's a stage of grief, to want it to be someone's fault, because otherwise the uncaring randomness of the universe and our own lack of agency is too upsetting. We're used to thinking of humanity as the masters of the universe - we've sent machines to Mars, we've eradicated smallpox. But here we're not in charge and it frightens us, and so we look for someone to blame, as if knowing who to blame (in medieval terms, which heretics to burn) will make the bad things will go away. 

At least these days we only roast people on twitter. 

I think there will be more bad things. If footfall in shops remains below even 60% of the usual I can't see central London retail coping. Rates will have to be dropped, or other less remunerative uses found for those units, and councils will suffer a loss of income just as local families need support because they've lost income too. Transport for London is already struggling, and the bailout offered by the government comes with strings attached, asking them to withdraw subsidies from the young and the old.

It seems to me people on benefits will likely be next in line, trapping the most impoverished in their local areas.  And there will be more people on benefits as the furlough scheme winds up and shops close. 

Gloom. Gloooooom. And yet it's not all bad. Local areas like mine could be the winners. I've not been spending nearly as much as usual (see clothes shops; proximity of, as mentioned above) but what I have spent has almost all gone into my local economy. I've bought clothes in Wimbledon and coffees in Sutton and extra groceries in Morden. All of which I'm not normally around to do. 

I've been litter picking too, and I truly cannot say I miss the commute. Nor do I want TfL to go bust though. It's a tricky one.  

I have been into town a few times at the weekend, visiting exhibitions as they reopen. Warhol, Kimono, Beardsley, Jewish Manuscripts. There's a clear shift now from quiet to 'quiet for Central London'. All the exhibitions were worth a look, although the Jewish Manuscripts one was smallish and, being at the BL, more scholarly. I used to love these exhibitions on their Tuesday late nights on the way home from work - they were just the right size and the right amount of quiet, and the building itself was buzzing with students and tourists. Now although the reading rooms are open it's all pre-book and the tiers of tables and cafes closed off.  

Pictures of a fairly empty city. 

The New Normal (part the third - and last)

My return journey on the 19th was a very different experience - the Costa at Chester station where I might usually sit and have a coffee while waiting for the London train had roped off the seating area and was selling off the cakes half price. The seats around me on the train were reserved, according to the dot matrices above them, but empty. By the time we pulled into Euston my train carriage had been winnowed down to just one person - me.

6.30pm should have been rush hour on the tube, but I not only got a seat but had plenty of space.
Collectively, it was sinking in I think.

Tooting, where I got off and went for groceries, was busy, and the supermarket largely stripped, although there was some tinned fish. My brother had given me a big bag of pasta (he buys extra when things are cheap or reduced) which I've been rationing by measuring out two teacupsful each meal, something I should probably have been doing anyway for the sake of my waistline, and two boxes of paracetamol.

Friday I made a loaf of bread that reminded me strongly of the descriptions of dwarf bread in Pratchett - half comestible, half blunt instrument - but was edible with soup. I worked from home and discussed with my manager possibly popping into the office one day on the following week - she was doing Monday, I thought perhaps Wednesday. Schools were being closed, but not shops. I went to the library in Morden after I'd closed up, and found they would be closing for 41 days from that evening, and all my books had already been renewed until that point.  I popped in the supermarket, but apart from a little tinned fish the shelves were pretty bare - lots of mackerel in teriyaki dressing, I noticed though. I'm not quite sure what a teriyaki dressing is but somehow if doesn't sound like it goes with mackerel, so I also gave it a pass.

On Saturday local shops provided pasta sauce and milk and veg - and also some bread and biscuits from a very nice Polish shop I had never been in before and had no idea was so big or so bountiful.

We took the dog for a walk in the afternoon and instead of meeting at my cousin's (and my using public transport to get there) my aunt drove the short distance to get the dog - my cousin, who thought she might be ill, standing well away and in a mask - and then on to me.

In the park kids were in the playground as usual, and the cafe had closed the indoor seating but you could still queue up for food.

I've seen the lack of social distancing on that weekend severely criticised since, but if anyone said 'stand six feet away' before last Sunday I must have missed it too - people were being allowed to crowd into supermarkets, and pubs and clothes shops were open. Hairdressers were open. Waterstones was coming under fire for being open. The decorators shop at the bottom of my block of flats had traded for their usual hours Saturday morning.

On Sunday I made a tealoaf with my last egg, and on Monday my manager went into an office where they were told to sit well away from each other, and basically scolded that they shouldn't be there, which she passed on to me. Monday evening the government announced that non-essential shops and businesses were to close for three weeks, and also what would be done to ensure people wouldn't starve, and there was a furore in the press and on twitter that the tubes had been cut but people were still having to go to work, and so tubes were still busy.

And that, finally, takes us to the new normal. My new normal anyway. Up an hour later than usual at 8.30am, fire up laptop at 9, lunchtime walk along the Wandle river or towards Mitcham Common across the cricket green, Watching webinars about how to use Teams and other remote working bits and bobs, daily emails to confirm yes, I am here, and no, I'm not ill. Cancelling and rebooking meetings. Talking people through how to videocall. Getting things changed on the website. Perhaps the long walk to the supermarket (I'm staying off buses as per TfL advice) or the shorter walk to the more reliable corner shops that I hope I don't forget to patronise when all this is over. They've been brilliant.

Workwise I have been put on a list for our community hub if they run out of frontline staff, but unless that happens I expect to stay off public transport and out of Central London completely.  I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'm conditioned to crowds, just as I'm conditioned to not having enough time to see all the exhibitions I want to see, or having to balance the demands (in a nice way) of socialising with friends and extended family, and (up until January) studying for my MA.

Now there's so much time it's absurd - I've gained two hours a day not commuting, plus all the time I used to spend at galleries or museums or the British Library reading rooms, plus the more or less fortnightly drinks with my dad, the half hour piano lesson on Tuesday, with it's 20 minute trip each way (or, if I walked back, 40 minute). Without colleagues to chat to, and in this time of transition, work days are slower too. I can load the washing machine or do the washing up. I can make a sandwich and eat it rather than queue up to buy one, or carry food in. Because I am home and my heating is on in the afternoons (the sun comes in in the morning) my clothes dry faster, and anyway I can wear the same pair of jeans four days in a row - I don't exert myself enough that they need washing daily.

So I'm adapting. I'm starting to wonder why we have such big offices and long commutes when it's clear many of us could do half the week from home. I've started waving to the postman, who I'd only ever seen once (in the sorting office) before. I've discovered that lovely Polish shop I kept seeing from the bus and thinking I should go in, and never did. I've rung up people in other one-person households I'm not great at keeping in touch with, and they've seemed pleased and talked and talked.

I've wondered why we drag people halfway across London to work meetings that could be done via conference call (yes they will be harder for me to minute at first, but I expect to adapt). I've taken the bin off the small cafe table in my kitchen and cleaned it down so I can eat there instead of at my desk or on my lap. I've enjoyed the walks through slightly wilder greenery than manicured parks, and the hawthorn blossom and celandine. I've seen a heron, robins, any amount of ducks and geese.

I've practised the piano more (still not daily), upped my duolingo use and rationed my news and social media consumption. I want to be up to date but I've decided I don't need to be dragged into speculating about 'if things were different'. At the end of the day it's a virus, it's no one peoples or person's fault. Not even those people whose politics I actively disagree with.

I still feel a little bit like a slacker, and have to keep reminding myself that I'm doing what we're all meant to do - stay in, offer to help but sit tight if not needed. It will get busier.

The New Normal (part 1)

The timestamp on the photo above is 2nd March 2020. I think when I took it I had some idea of a post about the approach of spring, even though it was still quite cool and extremely wet out. 

The one below was taken in late February in Hammersmith - that crowned figure is actually at the rarely used entrance to Hammersmith Town Hall, and I know I had a post in mind about how the old town hall building actually makes more sense if you consider that this side - which now faces onto a motorway - was the front, and the entrance everyone now has to enter through (which connects to a bleak annexe which required, when I worked there, the public to either try and struggle up to reception on an escalator with whatever they happened to be carrying - a buggy, a broken leg, all their worldly goods if evicted - or to snag a passing member of staff who could use their pass to get them into the lifts) was actually the back. 

Anyway they're refurbishing now, and hopefully it will all be much nicer and much more accessible. 

I've described it as late February. It was actually February 29th - leap year day - which I started with coffee at the Costa at Kew Bridge, before going into the Musical museum which I had heard about but never been to before and where I had a lovely little tour with an elderly volunteer guide who set lots of the various mechanical musical contraptions off for us and finished up with a Wurlitzer formerly belonging to the cinema in Kingston. They have tea dances there in the museum apparently, and show old films. There's a cafe which I made a mental note to go back to at some point when I hadn't already breakfasted in Costa. 

Then I walked down to Gunnersbury, hopped on the tube, got off at Ravenscourt Park to have a nosey at how the Hammersmith refurb was going, took the underpass beneath the motorway and walked along the river.

It was, as I think you can see from the sky in the pictures, a beautiful, bright, cold day. The Thames Path was busy with joggers and pubs and dog walkers, and so was Hammersmith Bridge, which is closed to road traffic at the moment. There was a small display explaining how a cycle and foot bridge was going to be put in temporarily so people could still get across the river while they repaired the road bridge. 

At Craven Cottage there was clearly a match about to start - hundreds of fans outside and more on their way, walking up through Bishops Park in the opposite direction to me. At Putney Bridge, where I got on the tube again, there's a secondhand bookshop which has been in business 27 years to my knowledge, and probably longer, and which used to have a sign telling customers to post the money through the door if the shop itself was closed. I turned over a few books, thinking about buying them, but ultimately didn't. 

And then, for the third time that day, I got back on the tube and came home, agreeably tired and quite pleased, and didn't write a blog post at all. I'm sporadic at best. I had posted the day before. And most of all I didn't realise, at that time, that I had had a remarkable day. That my old normal - both on weekends and weekdays - of hopping on and off the tube, in and out of shops and museums, moving through crowds of people - was about to change. It was known that Northern Italy had been hard hit by the coronavirus, and anyone returning from those regions had been asked to isolate, and I had taken a phone call at work from a summer school who usually had a lot of Chinese students (we told them it was a developing situation, and to follow HMG advice). But at that point only one British person had died - a passenger on the Diamond Princess - and it still seemed as if it would (or could) be contained. 

The weekend after my walk in Hammersmith I met up for a longer walk with my aunt Angela. As usual we congregated at my cousin's house to pick up the dog and have a cup of tea. We speculated with her whether her mother (also my aunt, and Angie's sister) would still be coming over from Southern Italy for part of the Easter holidays, or if flights would be cancelled. There was talk of Italy being in lockdown, of restriction of movement from north to south, but flights and trains were still taking passengers.  

I think it was the week after that when my aunt came out of the big Sainsbury's in Collier's Wood (I waited outside with the dog) saying how eerie it was - the shop like something from a film, the shelves empty. She had wanted eggs and I think some other things. I had wanted toilet roll. 

So I got the toilet roll from the Esso garage near home, and gave her three of my eggs in the interim. We discussed visiting the Hayward Gallery on the Monday, and she offered to give me a charger for a surface laptop, as my manager had suggested taking mine home every night in case I needed to isolate at short notice and the charger weighed as much as the laptop. I said yes please, although there had been a compromise arrangement, where I left it in an accessible drawer. 

I was considering going to Two Temple Place on the Sunday as well (it's a beautiful building that only hosts one exhibition a year, and they're always worth seeing) but was too lazy. 

Monday, as I was leaving work, my manager rang and asked me if I'd taken my laptop. I was mildly annoyed as I was going to a gallery and was almost at the exit, but turned around, went back up and got it, and passed on her message that we were to take laptops and work from home on the Tuesday. That was because she had been watching Boris' speech. 

The Hayward was lovely, restful, and not very busy. Mondays never are, in galleries, but this was exceptional. The cafe had me and one other person in it. I remember thinking I shouldn't touch things in the shop unless I was buying them, something I used to be told often as a child but have unlearnt along the way. I think I said, for the first time 'I'm not worried about catching it, I'm worried about passing it on', as if I needed an excuse to be cautious. 

I remember my hands felt dry because I'd been washing them so much. Not only when I went to the ladies, but every time I made tea or coffee, or entered a building. 

The exhibition was about trees, and my aunt and I sat in front of a huge screen where a birch forest - or rather a good mimic of one - rustled and swayed, and the leaves budded and greened and grew brown and dropped. 

Tuesday I worked from home. I have not been back to the office since. 

Holloway Prison

One of the announcements of this week’s budget - sorry, spending review - is the closure of Holloway Prison. It’s an unlovely place and has apparently been found inadequate so few people are likely to mourn, although the gentrification of the Holloway Road area will of course put even more of a squeeze on those who can barely afford to live in London. 

I’m not even sure how far it can reasonably be gentrified. The Holloway Road itself is the main route from London to the North, a fast, wide, dangerous road with busy pavements and waist high railings cemented into the kerb at particularly nasty spots to stop people crossing or stepping into the road and being killed. 

I know the Holloway Road quite well because I used to work in Archway, and I’ve been inside the prison just once, only for a few hours while I was minuting a child protection conference. I’d walked round all that area – I always explore a new area when I start working in it – but I’d never really noticed the prison before. Perhaps because it’s not the truncated-gothic Victorian pile it was when the suffragettes were held there but a complete late 70s rebuild that from outside resembles nothing so much as a giant warehouse.

The first thing that happened on our arrival was a delay because some of the people who’d come to the meeting were substituting, and therefore not on the list. This caused enormous difficulty and phoning round. The second was that they confiscated all electronics. Personal mobiles, work mobiles and the one laptop someone had brought.

We then went through a small chamber that was, essentially, an airlock. A door in front that only opened when the one behind was closed.

Then we went through a yard. I call it that because I seem to remember no plants at all, but there may have been grass, struggling to cope in the shadows of four high walls. Unbroken walls, obviously. There may have been windows with bars – there were certainly doors with metal-reinforced corners and multiple locks. It was an object lesson in how flimsy something like the door lock on a house is, just a small yale affair with a handle on the inside, and perhaps a door with a glass or wood panel that could be smashed quite easily if you needed to get out. 

Here I knew I couldn’t get out and it was incredibly unsettling. I can’t think of an occasion since the age of about 8 or 9 when that has really been case. Even at middle school the gates were left open and I could, and did, walk out of the playground (this is not now possible in a lot of schools, especially in London, and I don’t know how the kids can bear it) but from the moment I had crossed that yard I knew I was trapped and wanted to get out. I’ve never liked confined spaces, even large ones, I don’t even like the Shepherds Bush Westfield shopping centre, which is vast and objectively speaking quite an attractive space, simply because once I'm well into it I can’t see a way out.

Holloway was not attractive. The paint was the same constitutional gloss we had on the school walls when I was young but apparently without the benefit of being refreshed between terms. The larger space we were taken into was cut into meeting room size spaces with something a little thicker than room dividers, solid at the bottom and clear plastic or glass above, so that the whole area could be taken in at once, albeit with some confusion of perspective and reflection. The lack of privacy was another discomfort.

I kept reminding myself I could leave, that all I had to do was reverse the process by which I had come in, and it might take a little while, but I would be let out. People talk about prisons being too comfortable but I think they underestimate the deeply unpleasant nature of simply being trapped.

I got through the meeting because I was writing, and with something else to focus on I could forget where I was. Afterwards though I felt like I was holding my breath all the way out again.

The meeting itself was odd. There had been loose talk about the prospective mother having been assessed as having a mental age of 12 but although she presented quite well – the vocabulary of an adult - she didn’t seem to understand quite basic information, and when she didn’t understand something she simply ignored it. Not in an irritated way, as when someone hears an unwelcome truth, but actually as if ignoring it would make it disappear or not matter. Which behaviour made me think of a much younger child than 12.

She was friendly though and oddly.. I don’t want to say comfortable, but reassured by the restrictions.

It was impossible to tell if any of this was due to being institutionalised rather than the learning difficulty.

It seemed a bit unfair that she was there at all, but through work I’ve come to realise that we have a mistaken idea about the police. A lot of the time they don’t really care whose fault something is. Their job (much like parents who want to defuse a squabble amongst children) is to deal with the present incident and prevent future incidents. I don’t mean that as a criticism, but we should probably lower our expectations and remind ourselves occasionally that they’re not infallible.

Getting out of the prison was little quicker than going in, but once over it was a real pleasure to get back to the absolute chaos of Holloway Road and the mad rush in Costa. I felt much, much safer out in the adult world and by myself, but I did still wonder what it would be like through the prisoner’s eyes. If you were, as this girl was, confused and intimidated and unable to process what you didn’t understand, and then on top had just come from somewhere like a prison with its structured day and its warders and walls, wouldn’t the environment I was in now seem threatening?

Too crowded, too busy, too many people too close, too much noise of hissing steam and grill alarms. Too triggering to the instinct to fight.

I really thought it might. 

Worrying about nothing as usual..

The work situation is sorted and I start Monday. I've had 2 weeks off, which wasn't much of a hardship as we had the first decent weather we've had this year and I've done lots of walking, which is what I do when I'm a bit worried. I also had 3 offers of loans from family members which I was able to turn down, but which it's nice to know would be available if I was really in trouble. Done a bit of writing and piano practice, finally got round to writing to the student loans company about my overpayment, which I should have done ages ago, and caught up on a ton of sleep.

I also now know the bus route from my home to Oxford Circus, should I ever need it (my travelcard expired and buses are cheap).

What I should probably do tomorrow is finish the grand union canal walk I started over a year ago. I have just Berkhamsted to Leighton Buzzard to go and it's not dark until nearly 6 now. I've already done the harder bits to get to from London - around Northampton and such, where there are stretches which aren't near train stations and where sometimes the canal goes through tunnels so long and dark that pedestrians have to walk over the top of the hills.
Somehow, though, I stalled at the last bit.

So, onward. After this it's the Oxford Canal.

Watching the wheels..

I've just unexpectedly had the last week off unpaid, and may have next week too. It's a little convoluted but one of the people at the council I was working for asked some contacts at 2 other councils whether anyone wanted a temp when my contract came to an end (with the full knowledge of myself and my agency, Kellys.)

So I had the interview on Monday, and got the job. Unfortunately though it seems Kellys don't have a contract with this new council, which means I can't start. They're sorting it out now. However the person who interviewed me has been ringing me direct, on Wednesday (the day before I was meant to start) implying (although not outright saying) that I should simply go through the agency their council generally use. 'HR has said one way to simplify it..' apparently.

Only it wouldn't simplify it because:

a) their usual agency doesn't know me and wouldn't necessarily take me on. Even if they did they'd want my details, need to set me up for national insurance, check my references and would probably want to meet me and run a microsoft office test; all of which would also take time

b) I've temped with Kellys for 8 years, and they've always had positive feedback about me and found me work. Whereas this new contract is 3 to 6 months, after which I don't know if the new agency would necessarily - not knowing me - find me more work.

Also, I'm fairly sure he's not supposed to do that. I know there's no contract in place yet, but I'm sure there are rules about poaching staff from agencies. Even if he doesn't know that his HR department, who are apparently advising him, certainly should.

Friday he actually said 'the company (meaning Kellys) seem to think you work for them.'

Which I do, obviously. And if I went with this other agency I would also be working for that agency. This is what the situation is when you hire a temp. Of course he would probably rather not hire a temp, but it's not a substantive post, so a temp is what he's lumbered with.

But it's all quite uncomfortable from my end. I don't want to argue with him if it can be avoided because I do want the job - although not enough to break with my current employer. Also I suspect if he was challenged he would say he didn't mean it the way I'm hearing it.

Actually, the more he talks to me the less I feel I want to work for him. He's an incredibly anxious person, and he's making me anxious now, and he seems to be hedging his bets all the time, not quite saying what he means, which in my experience is the mark of a person looking to make sure he doesn't take the blame if he tells you to do something and it all goes horribly wrong.

I can actually imagine me going to this agency as he's suggesting, getting blacklisted by Kellys, having the new agency decide not to put me on their books, losing the job anyway and he would take no responsibility because he never openly told me to do it.

The 'oh there must have been a breakdown in communication' type.

So if this falls through I won't be sorry, and I'm quite enjoying the time off. I calculate I can cope with 3 weeks unpaid fairly comfortably, and I'm lucky enough to be debt free.

A friend did recommend I go to the council on Monday though and set the ball rolling re benefits. Just in case this dry spell lasts longer than I thought. I'm actually really balking at the idea. (I've been working since halfway through my A levels 23 years ago, sometimes part time while studying, sometimes 7 days a week) but she was speaking from experience - ie claim before you get into debt - and it's probably good advice. I can always cancel if it turns out I don't need it.

And I've been applying for other jobs (no interviews as yet) and writing a bit - I was thinking of entering a short story for the Bridport Prize these last 2 years, and I have been writing much more this last week, and better, as well. My brain feels less cluttered with nonsense.

So maybe this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise and force me to do something in that direction. I've been determined to write, starting and not finishing any number of things, since I was a child. Perhaps this is the shove I needed.

This bloke is ringing me again Monday though. I wish I'd never put my mobile number on my CV.

at the moment I am mostly living in 2009..

Up until quite recently at work my job was to minute adoption and fostering panels, the details of which are obviously too dull to go into, but which basically consisted of periods of intense activity and slightly longer periods of stultifying boredom.
Naturally enough in the periods of stultifying boredom, I went online and amused myself reading first the news, then the current day's blogs, then (this is how bored I was) blogs from the beginning.
It's quite a bizarre experience reading through events you lived through but don't entirely remember. Every so often a name would pop up I knew I'd known quite well just a few years before - Kerry Katona, Robert Peston - but the information had been relegated somewhere to the back of my brain with the penguins and the name of the actor in the invisible milk thief adverts.
Much googling ensued (I like to picture my subconscious sighing at this point, thinking 'what's the silly conscious cow doing now' and limbering up to forget it all over again.) and reading of news reports that were at least 4 years old.
What struck me as curious is how old some of that information felt - just history already - but how other bits seemed so current I found myself living it all over again, only more so because this time round I was paying attention. It was curiously compulsive, fast forwarding through 2006,7,8 and 9.
Which is the point where time reasserted itself. Back (or forward) here in 2013 they finally found a permanent person for the role I was filling and slotted me in somewhere else a temp was needed.
I immediately became so busy from 9-5 I can barely remember to take time to boil a kettle or fill in a timesheet, let alone indulge in some bizarre 360 degree reliving of years I only lived through a short time ago, and didn't pay too much attention to at the time.
But what this sudden pulling of the nostalgia plug means of course is that some part of me is still stuck in 2009, just at the beginning of the recession and the twilight days of the last Labour government, and some other part feels like that was forever ago and I know all the punchlines.
The cure, I suppose, would be to overwrite the whole thing by taking a more in depth and intelligent interest in the current day's news. But given that it's full of things like beheadings and Nick Ross and foreign investors carving up Greece plc for assets, I think I might wait 4 years again.