Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Tigged again

It was the venerable Mr Seat who got me into this mess in the first place.

This time, it is our benign Dictator-in-Waiting who has done the dirty deed. So be it.


This is the view from the P-G's desk in his office. No joking - this is probably the best view from a boring office desk in Edinburgh - possibly in the whole of the United Kingdom. There is a challenge for you.


The view from the study on the top floor of the Grace and Favour apartment is more modest. However, as it faces West, we are often treated to some delightful sunsets.


Inside, the view is also modest. Comfortable, business-like, moderately well-appointed, but nonetheless modest. You may admire the handy-work of your multi-talented Pedant-General: the shelf that you see burdened with case notes was nailed to the wall by my fair hand. It has the three key merits of any shelf:
1. It is level;
2. It is solid and adequately load-bearing;
3. It is at the correct height: it is low enough so that one may reach a file when sitting at the desk, yet it is high enough to avoid obstructing one's view or giving the occupant a nasty blow to the head on standing up.

A handy CD-shelf stacker thing to my left contains a ready supply of blank CD-ROMs for backing up all my vitally important correspondence and equally vitally important and earth-shattering photos of the young masters Pedant-General. It also serves as entertainment for the youngest master Pedant-General, who delights in taking them out and spraying them liberally (now there is freedom of choice, if ever there was) around the floor for me to tread on. This has had the added benefit that his vocabularly is coming along nicely.


Lady P-G's desk is another matter entirely. Whilst the desk itself is magnificent - it belonged to my grandfather and is a really proper thing, with a "roll top", a little ink well, a leather writing pad inset and secret drawers and all sorts - Lady P-G's use of it leaves something to be desired.

Beyond compare in so many fields as she undoubtedly is, nevertheless she has her faults. Filing paper, or more accurately her inability to file paper, is one of them.

If you will suspend disbelief for a moment, this is due to get worse: she is embarking on the writing of a sequel to her excellent first book. When work gets underway in earnest I fully expect to see the mounds of recipe books, scientific papers on nutrition and immunology and reams of vigorously defaced manuscript to gather and begin to lobby for their rights.

Lady P-G's laptop is important for one other reason: technologically it is the very centre of the Grace and Favour LAN. The printer (top right, on top of the desk) is shared and can be accessed by my laptop, Lady P-G and even the young masters Pedant-General from their bullet-proofed old Compaq DeskPro in the zoo downstairs. It supports the scanner. It has an external CD writer. It runs our own little automatic off site backup process. In short, it is pretty neat.

Would that we could say the same for her desk....

Nominations for my tigs to follow shortly.

UPDATE: P-G Nominations:
1. The Gorse Fox. This chap seems to like his sunsets. How nice.
2. Perhaps this little exercise would benefit from some alternative views. This gentleman will no doubt show us that blogging is a respectable profession on the other side of the pond, brought to a peak of efficiency by the merciless heat of capitalism.
3. This gentleman doesn't need the redirects from a mere slithering reptile like me. But perhaps he might show us whether or not he keeps his laptop in his kitchen: I know that Lady P-G is dying to know.

Toodle Pip!
PG


5 comments:

The Gorse Fox said...

May be a bit naive, but not sure what this "tigging" is... GF can be contacted at GorseFox at gmail.com if you'd care to explain.

The Gorse Fox said...

Sorted

Akaky said...

Gadzooks, I've been memed!!!!

Akaky said...

I fear, sir, that you are the victim of an unfortunate illusion. Blogging on this side of the Atlantic is not seen as a respectable profession, far from it. For many in the respectable media, for example, bloggers are seen as little more than a highly evolved form of lice, although with the common louse’s good looks or social utility. The merciless heat of capitalism can do a great many things, but changing some people’s opinions when they do not want those opinions changed is not one of them.

Akaky said...

I fear, sir, that you are the victim of an unfortunate illusion. Blogging on this side of the Atlantic is not seen as a respectable profession, far from it. For many in the respectable media, for example, bloggers are seen as little more than a highly evolved form of lice, although without the common louse’s good looks or social utility. The merciless heat of capitalism can do a great many things, but changing some people’s opinions when they do not want those opinions changed is not one of them.

Kindly disregard the previous post.