Mobile Office after the Opera

How cheering to wake up to a sunny day after yesterday's rain. Although it's cold, there's just a hint of Spring, with daffodils starting to blossom, along with crocuses and snowdrops. The morning slipped by writing my Lent blog before it was time to go to the office for a couple of hours. I came home early, as we had tickets for Humperdink's opera 'Hansel & Gretel', last seen in the WMC WNO performance of 13th June 2008, according to my pre-retirement blog 'Edge of the Centre' on that day.

Clare was still feeling unwell with her op-stopping sore throat. Despite our efforts to find someone to use her ticket, I ended up going on my own. The story is familiar enough, and the presentation of the first act I did recall, but the other three acts seemed not to have lodged themselves firmly in my visual memory, making something of a surprise for me. I can only think that the opera didn't make much of an impact on me when I saw it last. Maybe a consequence of being preoccupied with work worries. Now I am retired, I find I can take more in and savour it better. Is that perhaps why opera audiences tend to made up predominantly of grey and white headed people. 

The music, from the same era as Wagner, is relatively easy listening compared to Wagner, but nevertheless rich and melodic with tunes that I did remember hearing before in performance, quite apart from the opera itself. It was beautifully sung, with two female lead singers, a children's choir on stage in the final act, a funny pantomime dame of a witch,  most enjoyable, although sad not to be able to share the experience with Clare.

Ashley and I conversed by phone while I was waiting for the sixty one bus home. He asked if I could send him a Board member registration file to print off and hand out as soon as I got back. With a few more minutes to wait before the bus came, I thought I'd try and do this on my Blackberry, hunting down the file on the office One Drive account and emailing it. I was astonished at how easy this was to do, both because of the speed of the 4G connection, the clarity of the phone's display of the file system and a really good workable keypad. 

This is the kind of relevant performance which has over years earned global respect for RIM. Such a shame they had bad luck with the Z10 recently and lost market share. I grew to hate my previous Blackberry Bold because of its feeble keyboard and small display, although once it had been state of the art, and connectivity was always reliable. The Q10 hardware shines in comparison to both. Let's see what RIM will come up with next.

Markers of achievement

There's nothing like a spell of pleasant weather, and a little pressure free time in the office to making catching up on work tasks to be completed quite a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. That's how it Monday to Wednesday slipped by cheerfully. The only thing of interest was the arrival of a Blackberry work phone upgrade for me. It's hard to believe that it's more than eighteen months since I first acquired one, and started fuming and fretting over its tiny keyboard and screen. Much as I've disliked the standard Blackberry Bold, however, its connection reliability at home and abroad has always served me better than my Android devices, so it goes with me whenever I travel.

BT Business informed us of a contract renewal deal on a Blackberry Z10 touchscreen smartphone. It received good reviews, but appeared just as the parent company RIM started to go downhill fast, so fearing the worse some sections of the global market went for other devices instead. RIM has had hard times, but this doesn't seem to have been reflected in the robustness of its network connectivity, only its profitability. So, on the basis of the reviews, we signed up Tuesday afternoon, and the new phone was delivered eighteen hours later, backed by a couple of text messages to advise me of a straightforward SIM activation procedure.

It was late afternoon before I collected it from our 'other' office and took it home to unpack. It's an impressive piece of kit, with Blackberry's own user interface rather than the common Android arrangement. It'll take a bit of getting used to, but the clarity and slickness of the display make it a pleasure to interact with. By the time I got around to SIM activation, I found myself with an overnight wait. It's procedure initiated via the internet but overseen by humans, and BT no longer provide a 24/7 service, so the old phone with its larger format unswappable SIM card stayed in use overnight. Hmmm. Even so, I know I'll enjoy using it.

The other good thing about Wednesday was agreeing a satisfactory end of lease deal with our company financier. By this weekend we'll own every piece of equipment in our possession, and owe nobody anything. We've worked very hard for this, never defaulting on a payment, relying on direct revenue, no grants or subsidies. I look back to my time at St John's, and recall how the Tea Room raised a similarly huge sum of money over a decade of selling drinks, sandwiches and cake with a few dozen volunteers - enough money to redecorate the interior and transform the tower porch entrance into an elegant and appealing point of access - I feel proud to have been associated with and supported both of these voluntary social enterprises that in their different ways have done so much good for the city.

It's a delightful co-incidence that I should receive an invitation today, to attend a porch dedication ceremony at St John's next Tuesday. The Mayor and Archbishop Barry will be there.