NEWS

Luckily I have an amazing shiny new mac to do my work on – it was bought just a few days after I started here, which made me feel welcome!  I experimented with its special functions early on.  For example here’s a photo of Kristin King’s Gardens of Heaven and Earth in a fish tank:

and here’s one I took of Heaven and Hell in the clouds (apologies – I can’t work out how to turn off the mirror image function):

At the moment it is cold in the office, but not as cold as when I came for my interview. We all sat around in our coats because the boiler was unwell.  I very much hope it has no more near death experiences. I hear snow is due. I’m about to suggest that we do a special display of Conjugial Love in the shop as Valentine’s Day is imminent.  I’m not sure how this will be received…

17/02/2012

This week I am fighting with another ebook – Gardens of Heaven and Earth . This one is proving more time consuming and challenging – after an unsuccessful fight with PDFs and Calibre (ebook making software) I capitulated and begged Steve to give me a word doc to work with.  This has been better, but I’m have to redo the footnotes one by one to make sure they work as active links in the finished project.

Meanwhile, Nora is busily sending off thousands of emails and invitations for the upcoming exhibition – we want to ask Grayson Perry as another artist interested in unearthing forgotten treasures from archives (see his current British Museum exhibition The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman which includes his tapestry “Map of Truths and Beliefs” above. Catch it before it finishes, it’s wonderful).  James is worried about how the ‘remnants’ will be displayed – last seen he was constructing cunning cardboard stands for the exhibits.  Maybe we should ring Grayson and ask him for some help…

27/02/2012

So, in a recent work discussion it emerged that there is a movement to grant dolphins similar or the same rights as those afforded to humans because of their general cleverness and ability to do backflips and walk on their tails.  This led to an anecdote on vegetarianism.  At a dinner with an unnamed author (I asked, they wouldn’t tell) a bizarre argument about vegetarianism took place.  There are several vegetarians in the office (I’m one) and this author also happened to be a vegetarian.  However, when he was taken to dinner he committed the cardinal vegetarian sin of not warning his hosts (Swedenborg Soc) of his dietary needs.  So, they merrily set off to a restaurant that mainly served meat dishes, leaving him stuck with soup and salad (I personally like this choice – but I suppose it can be a bit boring).  Inevitably this led to a discussion of vegetarianism at the dinner table which culminated in him asking Nora point blank if she would eat a ‘disabled child’ as if this was the same as eating an animal…

Anyway – needless to say I avoid such militant, insane sounding vegetarianism and feel that eating habits are an individual choice.  Clearly I would like the world to be a bit friendlier to veggies and would appreciate a bit more choice (if I see another goats cheese and caramelised red onion tart I WILL scream) I did find this comment at once hilarious and completely inappropriate – it’s people like him who ruin it for the rest of us and make the omnivores hate and fear us.

Interestingly a prominent swedenborgian Isaac Pitman was, among many other admirable accomplishments, the vice president of the Vegetarian Society.  So possibly Swedenborg inspires rethinking of dietary preference.  Or possibly not.

Anyway, we also had the opening of the Remnants exhibition last night.  It was brilliant – loads of people, great atmosphere, excellent talks by Alex and James and Richard (with little evidence of nervousness).  Alex was especially informative.  Jan gave a little introduction as well and Steve worked hard on an improvised lantern slide show (mislabelled slides that claimed to be a history of the society but turned out to be a collection of Swedenborg’s drawings and plans) with an excellently varied commentary.  Nora and Diane and me were in the shop.  Nora was on crowd control and seemed to be everywhere at once, Diane sold ridiculous numbers of books and guarded the staff’s grapes carefully.  At one point I was left in sole control of the book selling and learned how to use the card reader and had been entrusted earlier with various really important tasks, such as cleaning up, proofreading the blurb and card cutting for the displays (more fuel for the CV).

There’s a sort of calm after the storm in the building today – but the exhibition’s still here and still most worthy of a visit thanks to the hard-work of Jan, Steve, James, Alex and Nora.

13/03/2012

In the last week at Swedenborg we have had visitors for the exhibition who all left excellent feedback, we’ve published our second ebookand I’ve been writing a new Excel marketing spreadsheet and ebook publishing guide to leave behind me.  It’s been busy!

I’ve got a new job in Oxford so I’m leaving my beloved London behind, again.

I’m going to miss working here – the area is beautiful and all the people here are so nice.

I’m currently feeding them lots so that they will remember me long after I am gone while they attempt to lose the 2 pounds I will have encouraged them to gain.  I made banana cake today and introduced cookies and grapes yesterday. Not sure what to make tomorrow.  Nothing banana as it emerges that Nora doesn’t like banana (massive oversight – I’m tempted to go out and buy her chocolate so that she gets her extra-added-holly calories for the day).

Actually  - I have decided to bake her a kiwi cake.  She seems a little perturbed, but it should be fine.

Sad to be going, but moving forward is good.  I’ll be back fairly soon anyway – I really want to see the nun film that’s coming up on the 17th of April No Greater Love.  It sounds brilliant.

Right, back to work, lots to do and only 3 days left to do it in!