Month: October 2005

That was an odd weekend. On Friday I found myself back in Cambridge for the shutdown party of a Logica office I worked at some ten years ago. I was there for a couple of years, doing some funky things, with some lovely people. It’s somewhat voyeuristic going back, but it was good to catch up with everyone.

And on Sunday I was back at Blackfriars for the Hatters AGM. This took me across the road from the ugly Kings Reach Tower, where I worked, on and off, for four years. All in all, a weekend of my brain resurfacing lots of subconscious associations with places.

It’s Brighton Comedy Festival time again, and today we’ve been to the only event we’ve planned for this year – Paul Merton’s Impro Chums. We went to this event last year as well, and it was still excellent, with some marvellous suggestions from the audience. Quite sad to see Jim Sweeney in a wheelchair now, last year he was still using walking sticks to get about.

Whilst we were in Cornwall, we had the good fortune to discover Bangors Organic Tea Room and Restaurant. Not only does it do lovely lunches, and cream teas, but it also has a couple of rooms available for bed and organic breakfast. We might just consider this next time we’re down there.

    

I’ve just finished processing the Cornwall photos

“Submarine Telegraphy”, “Porthcurno Telegraph Museum”, “World War II Museum”… it’s a worry when the name of something you’re trying to find keeps on changing on signs. Still, we found it, but with only an hour before closing. Not enough time, but I’m glad we stopped off.

What we have here is a museum, not far from Land’s End, based around the development of telegraphy from about 1870 until the 1950s. Dull? Heck no. Geeky? A bit. If you’re read The Victorian Internet, you’ll know the kind of things to expect. It’s one of the best museums I’ve been to.

There’s a range of stuff, from the crazy transatlantic cable laying, the life of people working at this particular location, through to telegraph pricing plans.
The thing that made it for me was the instrument room. This is set up as three telegraphy stations, so you can see (and poke about with) original working equipment. I think it was John who was there keeping it all ticking over, and answering questions. The worrying thing for us was that the messaging involved was shocking similar to the telex systems that Jane was working on at BA in the 1990s.

Apparently the day to go is a Monday, because the C&W old boys are in on that day taking the mechanical bits apart and fixing them up.

We’re just back from a lovely week in Cornwall. We rented a lovely cottage near Bude.

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Highlights of the trip were a day spent at the Eden Project, fish and chips from Rick Stein’s in Padstow (best fish and chips ever) and the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum.

I haven’t sorted out the photographs yet, but I’m sure there’ll be some soon…