Blog

Hard drive story

It’s a short story, really, but it means problems with blogging. My MacBook Pro’s hard drive had been a little wobbly for a while, so I took it in to the Covent Garden Apple Store, where they said come back in 5 days – and, typically, the hard drive died after 4. Had lost everything, but it turned out that Sam had installed trial version Carbonite a few days before the catastrophe happened. After a couple of days of restoring files, it looks as though most things are back, though not yet music (which only works when you pay), PowerPoint presentations and photographs. Amazing how crippled one is when IT goes down in this way. Am pondering getting a Mac Air, one reason being that my back is a bit of a problem and doesn’t need the weight of a 15″ MacBook pro, but also because the Air’s flash memory may be a bit more robust (no moving parts) when transported in my bike’s panniers.

With police helicopter hovering overhead

Forum 1 Forum 2: me, Sam, Alex (Nick) Forum 3: me, Sam, Alex

Across this evening to the Forum for the Future Christmas party, co-hosted by Interbrand in the Strand. A police helicopter hovered overhead, its spotlight beaming down towards Trafalgar Square, where the student protests were continuing – huge numbers had streamed past our office during the afternoon, down Southampton Row. very much struck by the fact that those who founded and led the environmental movement decades back are now moving into the mainstream, while a new angry generation is surfacing in the streets.

Artistic sit-in

Animated audience Fill our minds Occupied

Spoke at a Royal College of Arts ‘Sustain Talks III’ session, with Michael Pawlyn and John Grant, moderated by Joe Kerr–and with a fascinating opening presentation by James Wignall. Very lively. Toss-up as to whether we spoke in the conference room or in the area that the students were occupying: in the end, we did it in the conference room, but had a drink with the occupying students afterwards.

And of Hyde Park

Hyde Park 1 Hyde Park 2 Hyde Park 3

We went to a private view in Shepherd’s Market of Alan Kingsbury’s paintings. Elaine had bought a painting called Rover on the Riva. Walked back to Hyde Park Corner, stopping to admire the memorials and general statuary.

And Ale’s last day

Poster for Monsters Church Road Richmond Park Stag Elaine Lower lake, still under ice

Strange sense building this week that 2011 is going to take off like a rocket – almost as if Volans is in the process of casting off the booster rockets of its first two-and-a-half years and headed for a new trajectory. The sense of a watershed was in part created by the snow that swept across the country this week, partly by the tempo of requests for our involvement in interesting projects and partly, sadly, by the team’s celebration of Al(jandro Litovsky’s) last day with us. He’s planning to set up a not-for-profit organisation focused on earth security, in effect our first spin-out. More anon.

On Friday, Gaia asked us to go to a viewing of Gareth Edwards’ new film, Monsters, which she had seen ages ago when it was still in production – and had loved. I did, too: quite remarkable, even if you didn’t know that it was made on the proverbial shoe-string. Sadly, I missed a joint get-together of the Volans and SustainAbility teams, but I think/hope there’s another before Christmas.

Picked up a new pair of glasses (spectacles) yesterday, late evening, and walked through a Barnes transformed, with all the snow gone, even if the Pond still sported quite a layer of ice. As we walked through Richmond Park, there was still ice in parts, but the sun was bright and it felt good to be alive. Have been working flat-out on a secret project – and it was wonderful just to be able to stretch my legs and breathe real air.