This will hurt me...

All quiet on the Withdrawal Unit front… St Johns Park, New Town. February 2011. I can think of a million reasons that you might have a warning alarm outside the Withdrawal Unit, but I think that this is actually something to do with electricity…

Carruthers looms in the mist. St Johns Park, New Town. August 2010. Mornings like the one depicted above do nothing for one’s enthusiasm from work. That said, dazzling sunshine with birds merrily singing, children gaily bounding, and Hungarian washer-women happily whistling snippets of Bartók doesn’t exactly fill me with zeal to get inside under [far too many] fluorescent lights and sit down in front of a computer either. I need that glass box. By the beach. With an urn. And a fridge. And fruit. Pineapple. And grapefruit. And an early minute.

Carruthers at dawn. St Johns Park, New Town. August 2010. Here is the building where I now work. A slightly different architectural style than the previous one . The best thing about working in this building is in the fact that you don't have to look at this building. Last Friday a burst water main meant that we lost all water coming into the building. Not too serious for a bunch of pen-pushing keyboard-stroking bureaucrats on the top floor, but less pleasant for the renal ward downstairs...

Bottom of the stairs looking up. Carruthers Building, St Johns Park, New Town. July 2010. Last Friday I was on the [second] bus on the way to work – the Glenorchy via New Town Road – when I found myself rapidly approaching the emotional climax of the book I was reading. For those that don’t know (and you would be forgiven for not knowing of it), The Middle Parts of Fortune by the little known and long dead Australian expat Frederic Manning. Men and war, war and men. That’s the plot. While this book is a record of experience on the Somme and Ancre fronts of World War One, there is far more waiting around than actual battle. Just like a real war. That said; if you know anything about the Somme, you know that there will be blood. Perhaps the most striking thing about the book is the voices. Manning served in the ranks, a gentleman amongst men. The dialogue strikes one as ‘true’, and it is as if in recording the conversations of ‘the ordinary soldier’, it seems at times as if one is heari...

The view from the cubicle. Level 4, Carruthers Building. St Johns Park. New Town. July 2010. Action stations! I figured that as I'd shown you my old desk , so I may as well show you the new one. Yes, this is where the magic happens. It's a long way from glass case by the sea...