Despatches from the frontiers of indolence

Mar 23, 2011 | Uncategorized

Moleskin and Rapidograph

This relaxation thing is great and I know that it is working because a torrent of words has started to appear in a notebook where I keep a parallel journal which I don’t publish.  I’ve kept variants of this since the late 1990s when I undertook some international research and began to intersperse my notes with observations and reflections.  Later it turned into a kind of Learning Log under the influence of some courses I did at the National School of Government in Sunningdale.  Much of the content relates to my work or, rather, to my reflections on experiences at work.  It has some gaps (including one of two or three years) but it is there.

I brought the typed up part of it to an end when I left Scottish Government and the current incarnation is being written in manuscript form in a Moleskin Notebook with an old Rapidograph pen. For the most part it is a hotch-potch of reflections and thoughts and occasional whines and complaints.  In the past few days a number of things which I have pondered for a while and tried to write about have started to distill themselves as I think about my new job (which will start on 12 April).

This is because I have been thinking in a more focused way about what I want to achieve in the new job and the relaxation of the last three weeks has freed up my mind somewhat to bring some clarity to my thoughts. I have always made a habit of avoiding writing about my work in any depth here and do not plan to change that policy now -anything I produce publicly on that score will be done through other channels- but one thing I do want to mention.

Gannin up the Toon

One of the outcomes of that research in the nineties was that my report was published.  A while ago I started to write a book about my work in eProcurement but it ran out of steam about 23,000 words in.  There were good reasons why it ran out of steam and the main one was a lack of focus in my mind about for whom I was writing it and therefore how the pitch and tone should be handled.  I’m now going to go back to it and see what I can do with a clearer focus (as I’m going back to work in eProcurement).

One major factor in the structure will, of course, be that I can not directly draw on materials from when I was in Scottish Government and I don’t have authorisation to write anything directly on eProcurement Scotland but I am able to write about my own reflections on key issues and aspects of eProcurement and eCommerce and maybe some ideas on where to go next.

I also spent last night in a restaurant and a couple of pubs with some of my new colleagues and had a really good time – I’m really looking forward to getting started.

Quite separately, back in 1976/77 when still at High School I first encountered a live album by Wishbone Ash called “Live Dates” which I really liked then.   I had a cassette copy which gave up the ghost some time ago but they were mentioned in the paper today and I am revisiting it online together with Argus which I think was their third album.  It has stood the test of time quite well although, typically for the time, it is rather too guitar heavy for my tastes now in that there is rarely a pause in the music which is not filled by some noodling (a bit like Blue Oyster Cult in the same period).  I’m not as crazy about it a my 17 year old self was but it is a fun listen.