Meaningless, meaningless

Wow.  I've just found that

Simon Amstell

has

Richard Herring

as one of his friends on MySpace.

This makes me very happy. :-)

Interestingly, Richard Herring has Dave Gorman as one of his.  I wonder how many clicks it would take to get from him to

me

Onna course this week, in the glorious green Sunningdale (near Ascot, for the uninitiated -- it's a hard life in the civil service).  This is the place from whence I issued my long "argument board" declaration on life, death and eternity.  Makes me realise how much better I'm feeling now.

Anyway, this one is "Communication and Interpersonal Skills for Specialists".  Tactful, eh?  I have learnt that my influencing style is strategic, and that I am a battler rather than a collaborator.  Which may cause problems in future as underlings don't like female battlers (although they're fine with male ones, grrr).  Watching the American mid-terms, I don't think this is true in the US.

I was in Cardiff on a conference last week, presenting a paper.  Scary, but fun.  I got chatted up by a very geeky Barclays economist, which delighted me no end.  I like geeks, and economist geeks are much like physicists in many ways.  I also met up with Carl and Meilyr and Rob and filled them in on Tom and my plans to move to Cardiff in the near future.  I will say more about this later.  Now, I must return to the intensive interpersonal skills grooming session.

Ciao.

My mum's written the first chapter of a book:

She writes about Parkinson's being a mugger who keeps coming back for more, gradually stealing her health.   And she complains that the health service is complicit in the mugging.

 Alby should read it -- he would definitely have something to say about it.

 And Clurb should make her library buy it.