Dinner is quietly cooking away downstairs, the last virtual Pink Singers rehearsal of the season is done (a day after our would-be concert at Cadogan Hall, which was of course cancelled). Summer flirts outside, tantalisingly. Life continues inside. A set of completely unrelated paragraphs:
Three virtual choir recordings have taken place under this roof since lockdown started. One a bit of fun with the Barberfellas putting a new covid-spin on Go The Distance.
The second, also Barberfellas (and which I sound-edited in a day after a 60 hour week): a socially-distant recording of U2’s MLK as a bed under a poem by the talented Andreena Leeane to reflect on systemic racism in the UK.
The third is Pink Singers and comes out on Wednesday: it is a beautiful cover version of Fix You and, as usual, has surpassed my expectations of what a group of queers who like to sing every Sunday can do when they get themselves together.
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I’ve been trying to deepen my understanding of service design. At work, I am presently occupied with (to force a metaphor) the rapid stitching together of a quilt made out of very different pre-purchased parts – as quickly as possible before the weather gets cold. For what it’s worth, I’m proud of what the team I’m working on is doing: it’s really reducing the impact of coronavirus on a large swathe of the population. When making services and products in a hurry, we make do with what we’re given. But there are definitely simple ways to create services in response to a crisis (as Lou Downe explains). On my programme, the sewing is mostly done, so we do what we can. But never forget to reflect.
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[Ooh, so cryptic]
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I was re-reminded of the best tweet I have seen of late:
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Muzzle app, which pauses notifications while screen sharing, has saved me from Slack notification blunders aplenty since I installed it. And it has the best marketing website I’ve ever seen, ever.
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I was sent a Covid-19 test through the post as part of the Imperial College / Ipsos Mori study, and I carried out my duty dutifully. I’m virtually positive I don’t have it, but strongly suspect I have had it, so an antibody test would have been more personally interesting. But still, it’s good to provide a data point. And although the test itself is reasonably unpleasant, the instructions were reasonable (if lengthy), and included a Jamie-oliver style video.
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I’m taking a week off next week – the first since January. I can positively smell the pages of the real, physical books I am absolutely intending to read. Oh and a lot of cycling. Yes please. Basically: I need a really huge screen break, and ideally some very safe, small meetups with lovely people.