B-day

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Changi

Here I am back at Changi, in the SQ lounge, and on my way home.

Final day (up to 2.30) in the office, then to the airport in Jakarta for flight here, and now waiting for my late connection back home at last.

Have just finished my latest book (The Cartel - Don Winslow), caught up on a few emails, sent a message home, and hoping to have a quick chat before embarking on the final leg.

Think it might be time to have a wander around the shops, just to kill some time.

Now that work trip is done, can start to properly look forward to holiday. 'This time next week ...' and all that !!

J7

Office

Duck King

J6

And so to the office again.

Followed by dinner at Saigon.

Not wanting this to be a celebrity death watch blog, but sad to see the news that Nicholas Parsons has died. One of the people who you assumed would go on forever. My twitter timeline was filled with people saying lovely things about him.

J5

The journey back - boat, car, plane, boat - about 12 hours in total.

As we were getting back to the Sangatta jetty, a fishing boat coming in at the same time.

BMA2

A place to stay.

BMA1

And so the boat ride, in a rented boat this time, as ours is out of action.

HRV

Travel day today.

Car to airport, flight to Samarinda, car to Sangatta.

Our desintation the delightful Hotel Royal Victoria - makes you seriously miss the comforts of the Gran Melia.

J4

Last day in office for the week.

Finished another book, such are the joys of travel and staying on your own in a hotel - book was Martin Amis's 'The Rub of Time' - makes me want to read a few more authors that he writes about (Ballard, Roth, Updike, but definitely not Nabokov).

J3

And finally I am up to date with blogging - actually posting this on the right day!

Last night I was back to the hotel at a reasonable time, and had dinner for one at the hotel restaurant (burger ;) ). Would have had something with people from the office, but the big boss is already on site, and we will catch up with him at the weekend, and all of my team are rather busy with the year end, and wanted to stay in the office working!

I took book 2 of the trip to dinner, and during a combination of dinner and afterwards ended up finishing that one off (The Secret Teacher). Decent read - the author admits at the start that it is not exactly 'true', and is clearly something of an amalgam at times, but is certainly very well done in parts.

Didn't manage to catch up with home. Nicky was at Zoe's Mum's funeral, representing the family, and sending along all of our love. Will catch up with her later today.

J2

As always, limited sleep on first night. Got off ok, woke up at about 3am, tried and failed to get back to sleep, eventually managing to fall asleep again just about in time for my alarm to wake me up.

During the sleepless hours, ended up finishing off my first book of the trip (for some reason I had started three on the way over), Michael Lewis's 'Boomerang', which looked at the perilous state of various European (and some US state/municipal) economies after the financial crash. As I think I've said before in the blog, his books are brilliant and extremely readable. I think I am in danger of catching up with everything that he has written in the not too distant future (very helpful that he makes his books available on the library app - not all authors as popular as him do so).

J1

Arrived Jakarta.

Smooth flight over to Singapore. Had dinner, watched one film (Hustlers), read for a while, got a decent amount of sleep, watched first episode of Chernobyl (really rather unpleasant). Arrived what I think must have been a little late at Changi. Just about time for a quick coffee in the lounge before heading to the next plane for short flight to Jakarta.


Picked up at airport, and took the slightly scenic route into town, due to having the wrongly numbered number plate and needing to avoid the city until a certain time.


Checked in at hotel. Internet not working, so quick phone call home before calling it a night.

Lounge

It's that airline lounge time again. A short (by work standards) trip on this occasion - one of the Sunday to Friday versions, but doesn't make the leaving part any easier.

Jake phoned on the way over in the taxi, so great to have an opportunity to catch up with him before setting off. Sounds like he and Izzy had a good day out together yesterday, and that he's well set for the start of term proper tomorrow. Perhaps I'll get a chance to see him in my brief return to the UK in a couple of weeks, before we head off to the US - would be nice if I manage it.

Regular blog observers will have noticed that for all of the week just gone I've been rather cheating with the posts - inserting a single word title (to ensure that I can dubiously claim to have achieved a daily blog) with the intention of going back later to fill in with some more detail.

Well, I have a 12-hour flight coming up, and so no excuses about not completing the detail, for uploading when I arrive in Jakarta!

1917

In what is in danger of becoming a 2020 Saturday tradition (second time already, and plan for a third visit the day after I get back from Indonesia), it was cinema and tapas again. This time around it was 1917 (two war films to start the year), and wow, what a film it was. I am writing this from Jakarta several days after seeing it, but I can certainly say it left an impression, and I can see it sweeping up several awards in the upcoming Oscars.


As Nicky pointed out, the cinema was completely silent throughout the entire film, no talking, not even the occasional rustling of popcorn, and we were all completely subdued at the end as we filed out quietly. Not been in a movie theatre like that for a very long time.

Prep

Last day in the office for a while, so making sure that I was organised for my trip to Jakarta. This included one of the most important points – downloading some books from my library app to make sure that I have things to read whilst I am away. I chose seven to start me off, a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. Will be interesting to see how many of them I get through. It is a comparatively short trip, and I think only six flights, so maybe fewer than normal.

Jobs

Finally finished the Steve Jobs biography. Took me a while (I started before the end of December), but what a fascinating book about a fascinating man. Completely authorised and all access account, and Isaacson doesn’t hold back in explaining the man’s faults as well as his virtues, but even so, what a truly remarkable guy. To be at the forefront of so much creativity and so many amazing changes is difficult to comprehend.


But then, to be struck down by that dreadful cancer at such an early age was just awful. Having learned so much about him, reading the last part of his story was extremely difficult. This passage towards the end nearly finished me off:


Later, Jobs took his son out to the barnlike storage shed to offer him one of his two bicycles, which he wouldn’t be riding again … When Reed said he would be indebted, Jobs answered, “You don’t need to be indebted, because you have my DNA.” A few days later Toy Story 3 opened. Jobs had nurtured this Pixar trilogy from the beginning, and the final instalment was about the emotions surrounding Andy’s departure for college. “I wish I could always be with you,” Andy’s mother says. “You always will be,” he replies.


Oh crikey! Not even the greatest of reality distortion fields or wishing that the normal rules of life don’t apply to you are enough sometimes.

Steps

London today. A training session followed by catching up with a former colleague for some lunch. Then train to the office for some work in the afternoon, train back to London, and plan was for train straight back home, but due to rail chaos, dinner at the station, and later train once chaos had subsided.


In amongst all of this, I set a record on my new step-counting watch (Christmas present from Nicky) of over 12,000 for the day.


Also, parking at Rochester is ok but commuter car park looks like it gets full by 8am at the latest!

Brendan

We got the tail end of storm Brendan during the day, which included some window-shaking weather in the office, and by the time I went home, there was a fairly large tree down across one of the main roads in T Wells, making getting out of town even slower than usual.


The woods at home had taken a bit of a battering too, as the following day’s dog walk showed.

Taxing

Good news – tax return completed and submitted.


Better news – they owe me – a little, but much better that way around.

Back

Sunday afternoon trip back to halls. Just the one bag. Just for the one night, as just the one exam on Monday before coming home again for a few days to revise some more for the next exam later in the week.

Jojo

Tapas followed by film night.

There had been some debate over whether it should be Jojo Rabbit or 1917, but Jojo won out, and what a fine film it was too. In parts funny, heart-warming, thought-provoking, and heart-stoppingly sad. Hard to imagine from a film with the one line premise of being about a little boy with Hitler as his imaginary friend, but there you go.

Listened to the end of the most recent Kermode and Mayo film show (because of a mention on Twitter) and Mark Kermode says it best (in response to a deeply moving listener email) when explaining the importance of cinema. To paraphrase:

The importance of film, and the role it plays in people's lives, goes so far beyond the mechanics itself. Cinema is like a dream - when you imagine something in your mind, it's like the way a film unspools. Its emotional impact is experienced on a fundamental level. Cinema is a machine for producing empathy.

3 books

Buying books in threes.

Firstly, spending my Christmas voucher from Bec, these were the choices.


Looking forward to getting into each of them, for different reasons. I hope that the Iger book isn't to business-focused, not too self-congratulatory, but provides some real insight on life working for an on behalf of 'The Mouse' and being responsible for its legacy. The Cruickshank should offer some great London trivia, get me off the well-trodden path, and encourage some interesting diversions. Then, the Lily Allen autobiography looks intriguing, someone with an opinion or two, and not afraid to say it how it is!

A trip to the Oxfam bookstore produced another trio of books worthy of further investigation - the story of setting up and running a bookshop, philosophical answers to internet searches, and literary extracts for reading aloud. Marvellous!

Board

One done

Service

My little car went in for a service today. The bonus was that I got to take the nice new big car to work whilst Nicky ferried mine back and forth. The good news was that my car passed its MOT, had a service, and most importantly had its annual clean (total cost £280). The bad news was that the garage seemed keen to offer it a new clutch and some new front brakes, for a total cost of £1,600. Work declined. Pressure now on to get rid of the trusty little car and switch to something newer.

Sofa takeover

Term

Today feels like the start of a proper new term, mostly thanks to the significantly increased volume of traffic on the road this morning, as everyone started to face getting back to work or school, unlike those of us who made the effort for a couple of days last week. Still things are warming up a little bit - preparing for things to come as January (and beyond) gradually gets busier.

As the pictures from Saturday's blog shows, we had a lovely start to the weekend. Nicky picked me up from work on Friday, and we drove to the Vineyard pub in Lamberhurst where a dinner and B&B had been arranged. Pub food was good (even better once we'd moved ourselves away from the large table of shrieking ladies), room was comfy, including an entertaining and challengingly tight spiral staircase, and breakfast was full English.

Just under a mile down the road was Scotney Castle. If I'd been there before, it must have been a very long time ago, as I don't remember it at all. Nicky's main story involves camping and D of E expeditions. However, we had a lovely visit in the winter sunshine. Sad to discover that the old castle was deliberately made a ruin when the newer house was built. Where was the National Trust when it was needed the most?! Importantly, we can say that we've already used our NT membership in 2020, and possibly more than we did in the entire year in 2019!

Once home on Saturday afternoon, we set to with dismantling of Christmas trees and packing up of decorations (there's quite a collection on the landing waiting to be shipped back up to the loft at the moment) before risotto followed by crumble for tea (Jake and Izzy's request).

Relatively quiet Sunday: church (final chance at some carols), Nicky took Izzy's luggage over to her house as the rest of the family had just arrived back from NZ, roast with Nan, dog walk, that sort of thing.

Cup tie

Jake went to Priestfields this afternoon, as it's not too often that the Gills get to host a Premier League side. Truth be told, he was actually sat with the away (West Ham) supporters, so had to do his best to look pleased when they scored in the second half, and then sealed the victory in injury time.

So, no Gills in the hat for the 4th round draw. At least Spurs are still in it, although we will have to have a replay against Middlesborough!

Scotney

Mid season

Time for a quick reflection on this post from back in August, when Jake and I made our predictions for the 2019/20 Premier League season. We took stock at the end of the year, which was approximately half way through the season (and before the games on New Year's Day) to see how we were doing, and it's fair to say that results were mixed!

Overall Jake was winning at that point, with a cumulative error of 72 league places across all teams (or an average of about 3.5 places per team), whereas my cumulative error was 81 places, or 4 per team.

The most obvious surprise is Sheffield Utd - both of us have predicted them to go straight back down, and they are currently doing pretty well in the top half. Then the main reason for the difference between our standings is my dislike of Newcastle causing me to stubbornly predict them in last place, whereas Jake has them in what may turn out to be a more realistic 11th.

We will see ...

Recap

To recap on the holiday period, and share a few pictures:

25th - just the three of us - me, Nicky and Margaret, but Nicky did a fab roast beef for lunch, and otherwise we had a pretty lazy day with the Christmas TV.

26th - a much fuller and livelier house, with lots of visitors and an enjoyable time had by all.

27th - a trip to the park with the dogs, including both of them going for a paddle in an alarmingly deep pond. Completion of Christmas jigsaw puzzle.

28th - trip to Canterbury, mostly an excuse for a longer ride in the new car. New winter coat purchased for me.

29th - another trip out in the car - this time to Heathrow to collect the returning travellers after their epic journey all the way back from New Zealand via China.

30th - Christmas day all over again. Presents for those just returned, Christmas dinner no.2 (turkey), and a Disney Christmas quiz.

31st - a low-key New Year at home - J gone to meet up with friends after a fairly long afternoon nap, I not making it to midnight by about three hours due to the jetlag.

New Year

So, New Year, new post!

Today the Christmas holidays have been winding up, as it's back to the office tomorrow. The returnees from New Zealand are gradually getting back onto UK time (possibly helped by Jake going to one of his friends for a New Year get together last night).

We went over to Bluewater to a cinema trip this afternoon (Jumanji 2) followed by GBK, and are now relaxing (in the new extension) in front of the telly watching Ferris Bueller.