Thursday 24 October 2013

Conferencing in London

Tuesday morning I visited the NHS dentist with whom I am newly registered for a first check-up. Apart from a few minor repairs and the need for a crown on one of my vintage fillings, my teeth are thankfully in fairly decent shape. I now have a couple of appointment for the course of treatment, when I return from Spain.

I went into the office for the afternoon, and after my weekly Chi Gung class headed for London on a late train to attend a Business Crime reduction Partnership conference. I stayed overnight with my sister June, arriving there at nearly midnight, to find the automatic door opening mechanism, repaired that very day was not functioning, due to a mechanical fault caused by installing a new lock. The building management agents are hopelessly inefficient. I wonder how long an effective repair will take?

The Wednesday conference was held at the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, a century old building that started life as a permanent indoor circus, and later became used as a music hall, a theatre and even a night club. It has been renovated and adapted for its new use, restoring lots of its original decorative features. During one of the breaks one of the business partners in the venture chatted to us with enthusiasm about its building in 1900 and its subsequent history. It's one of several fine Edwardian theatres by architect Frank Matcham, a very strictly run gaming house open to the public as long as they behave themselves properly.

Our conference was excellent in that the failures and problems as well as the successes of Partnership working were discussed. It became clear to us that the difficulties Cardiff B.C.R.P. has striven to overcome in the past five years are far from unique. We had a meeting after the meeting with the Operational Director of the Association of Business Crime Partnerships, who was very helpful in his analysis of our situation and in giving us valuable advice. 

I got back to my sister's place at seven. We had supper, then I introduced her to the Samsung Chromebook I'd brought with me for her to try out. It wasn't a success, as the track-pad was too sensitive to control properly for stiff old fingers, and the font size too small for easy reading. She very much liked the ease of access to iPlayer, YouTube and GMail, albeit recent interface changes to GMail make this much less easy to use than the old form she'd gotten used to. It's a nice light machine, but it's clearly not older non technical user friendly. I could see myself on the phone for hours talking her through getting used to it and getting only exasperation as the outcome. So I decided not to leave it with her, and reconfigured it for my own use before packing it for the return journey.

I left London on the train late this morning, and completed my sermon for Sunday en route, using the Asus Transformer which I'd also brought with me, and its Polaris Office suite, for a change. What it can do is quite good, but I still prefer the proper desktop user interface I'm accustomed to, than any interface designed primarily for touch screen users. I don't care if this means I'm stuck in the past. Maintaining productivity is what matters.

Before going home I went into the office for a couple of hours, and as Clare was poorly, went out on my own for my last Tai Chi session until December.

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