Interview (1) – Goodge Street

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Goodge Street is one of the remaining stations on the Central London Tube where the platforms are served by lifts. As he looked at the back of the person in front of him, Jim wondered why he had bothered to take the lift, with a little additional effort he could have climbed the emergency stairs, in fact he had considered walking from Euston but had decided against it. In either case, the exercise would have contributed to a New Year’s resolution of “taking more exercise”.

The station’s décor of dark wood and glazed tiles gave it a retro feel. Come to think of it, this wasn’t retro at all – this was mostly the original look from Edwardian London! In contrast, the lift was lined with some sort of grey laminate with the joints trimmed with aluminium strips. He supposed this was in the interests of it being hard-wearing. High in one of the corners, beneath the ceiling, Jim could see a CCTV camera staring blindly at him.

The previous evening, he had decided to that he might find a reasonably priced hotel and treat himself to an evening out in town before going home tomorrow. As a result he was trailing a small wheeled suitcase and he felt awkward in the crowded lift.

A gentle drizzle was falling when Jim emerged from the station entrance. He ducked into a shop doorway and checked the location of the street he wanted in battered London A to Z. He had marked the page with a paperclip.  It was only a couple of hundred yards from the station to his destination. He turned away from the crowds of Tottenham Court Road in the hinterland of back-streets and set off steadily along the damp pavement.

(Part of the “Tyson” project: 8th January 2017 – 291 words)

An Enquiry (5) - Preparation

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Suddenly Jim found his life in turmoil. Jerked from the gentle, purposeless drifting of the preceding months he found that he now had a purpose, only he didn’t know what it was. He found there were things to do, and he needed to do them. He had committed himself to going for an interview, for an unspecified job in two days’ time!

Within a quarter of an hour of the call from Anastasia Litvenyenko he received the eMail telling him where he was to go, and even directions from Goodge Street, the nearest Tube station. Exploration on the internet told him nothing about the location. It was an unremarkable, narrow street of 19^th Century houses. No doubt many of them served as offices for companies. Apart from the profile of Anastasia Litvenyenko, there was very little about her employer, Dr Medinger (was it Gustav?), except for references to some old research papers or even any company they were associated with.

Jim decided he would travel to London by train. It meant an early start, but he could cope with that. He would take the mainline train to Euston station and then the Tube to Goodge Street. From there it was only a short walk. He booked his Train ticket online, and printed the confirmation. He fished his old Oyster card from the pouch containing his passport and put it with the rail ticked. It was a long time since he had been to central London.

Once he had made his transport arrangements, Jim began the business of brushing and pressing his suit. He shook it out and hung it on the back of his bedroom door. He took a silk tie, still in its wrapping from the dry cleaners and draped that over the coat-hanger and ironed a white shirt. He found the little box containing cuff-links and tie pins and put it on his bedside cabinet.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He was excited. He told himself not to build up any hopes or expectations and got on with the tasks he had for the rest of the day.

(This is the location I have chosen at random from Google maps. The description is not much like the house. Here is the house I going to use as the basis for the external description - I don't know anything about it, but it hasn't changed much in 20 years.)

(Part of the “Tyson” project: 6th January 2017 – 352 words)

An Enquiry (4) - Communication

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He settled himself at his work-desk, in front of his laptop and plugged headphones and a boom microphone into his mobile phone. He shuffled the notes he had arranged to his right and, with deliberation, sent the text message to say that he was free. And then he waited.

Scarcely a minute had passed before the phone rang – “Anastasia calling” said the message. He tapped the screen to accept the call.

“Hello. Jim Gray speaking.”

“Hello Mr Gray. My name is Anastasia Litvenyenko” said a clear voice. She certainly didn’t have and English accent, but she didn’t have any very obvious accent at all. “We exchanged messages a little earlier today. Is it convenient for you to talk now?”

“Yes, certainly, I have as much time as you need.”

“Good. We won’t take much of your time today anyway. Dr Medinger and I have looked at your resume on-line and we think you may be suitable for what we want to do. Would you be available for an informal interview in London later this week.”

“Yes. I can come to London. That will not be difficult at all. When would you like me to come?”

“Would Wednesday or Thursday suit you? We would like you to come in the morning and spend all day with us.”

“I would prefer Wednesday, but Thursday would be fine too.”

“Good. Wednesday at 10:00 then. Is that acceptable? I will send you the details of where we are.”

“Yes. That’s convenient. I have your phone number if I have any problems. Can you tell me a little more about the assignment?”

“I’ll send you all you need to know in the eMail. Dr Medinger and I look forward to meeting you on Wednesday.”

And then she ended the call. Jim was left, looking around the room. He was going for a job interview the day after tomorrow, and he didn’t even know what the job was!

(Part of the “Tyson” project: 5th January 2017 – 322 words)

An Enquiry (3) - Contact

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Jim took the long way to the pub. The short way was a mile there and a mile back. The long way took more than 2 miles over the hill on the journey out and made for a circular walk. As he walked the midday sun warmed his face, but the wind was cold, and he could see frost remained in the shadows.

The pub was warm when Jim went inside. A log fire burned in the grate and Jim went over and rubbed his hands in front of it after he had stuffed his cap and gloves in a pocket and hung up his waterproof jacket. He nodded to Ned who started to pour a pint of bitter.

Jim sat at the window table, reading the newspaper he had picked up from the bar. There was nobody else there apart from Ned the landlord and he was busy arranging glasses and stocking up the bottle-cooler cabinets at the back of the bar.

Jim knew the television suspended high on the wall was on but the sound was turned down. He hadn’t noticed what channel it was tuned to, but at this time of the day it was probably tuned to one of the rolling news channels. He wondered about what he should do about lunch. It would be easy to pick something up in town, but he would have to eat it there. He knew there was food in the house, so he decided that, in the interests of his waistline he would walk home after his second drink.

He had just started his second pint of beer, when the phone in his pocket vibrated. Pausing to fold the newspaper, put it to one side and put on his reading glasses, he fished it out and looked at the screen. He had been sent an eMail by Anastasia Litvenyenko. Now that was a surprise!

(Part of the “Tyson” project: 4th January 2017 – 315 words)

An Enquiry (2)

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He spent the next hour analysing the short request to be added to someone’s professional network. The writer had let the standard text at the start, but after that they seemed to have effort into writing the request. They had certainly read what was available on his various on-line profiles, and had read several blog entries. They referred to him by name “James Gray”, starting with “Mr Gray”, but using other variations in an intelligent way. They knew what his interests were.

The writer was someone called Anastasia Litvenyenko. Researching her on-line was not difficult, but it didn’t yield as much information as he hoped. She was the personal assistant to someone called Gustaf Medinger and was based in North London. There wasn’t really mention of a “company” and it wasn’t clear what business Litvenyenko and Medinger were involved in. Medinger’s profile talked about “technology” but in a round-about way, hinting about computer systems, chemicals and bio-technology. There were certainly interesting people but what did they really do? That wasn’t clear at all. It certainly wasn’t clear what they wanted, except that they thought they had “a proposition which will interest you”. Jim continued to be enticed and even intrigued.

Having done the research, writing the response was relatively easy. For the most part Jim simply answered a few questions and expressed a willingness to communicate with either Litvenyenko or Medinger. When he was finished, he read through what he had written. He thought about “sleeping on it” and then decided that it was better to reply immediately. The mouse pointer hovered over the send button for a moment and there it was gone! Congratulating himself on completing the task, and, reminding himself that he would probably never hear from either of these strange sounding characters again, Jim shut down his laptop, dropped his mobile phone into his jacket pocket and went out for a walk. The clock said the time was after midday, the sun was over the yardarm, so he was going to drop in at the pub.

(Part of the “Tyson” project: 3rd January 2017 – 340 words)

An Enquiry (1)

“I’d like to add you to my Network.”

That was how the note started. It was like so many others he received, from people who were trying to “grow their list of contacts”, junior recruitment agents who either had some hopeless contract they wanted to foist on someone or had nothing better to do than trawl the business equivalent of social media, or outright chancers. Just occasionally there was a message from someone he had known in the distant past, or what read like a genuine enquiry. It was just possible that this eMail was one of those, that rarest of things, a message from someone who was presenting themselves as a human being and wanted to communicate with another human being about something which might be of interest to both of them, rather than someone simply going through the motions as an organic cog in the corporate machine.

He had anticipated a rather boring morning clearing any administrative backlog and then working on one of his pet projects for a couple of hours, before going for a walk around lunch-time. And if the walk should just happen to pass the pub (which, coincidentally, it usually did), then he might pop in for a couple of drinks. That was how most of his days went these days. He was by no means rich. He had to watch the pennies, but he wasn’t desperate for work either. He had enough money coming in from his pension and a few other things to keep things ticking over. He didn’t feel the sense of urgency which he had at times in the past. He knew he was drifting through life and he didn’t mind at all.

He looked at the email again. If all it had said was “I want to add you to my network” is would have been consigned to the electronic bin immediately. He was no longer interested in the limited kudos of accumulating “contacts” and “likes”. He had plenty of both for all the good which they did him. This note was different. The person, and it certainly was a person rather than a “bot” of some kind, or someone pasting in some standard text, seemed to have actually read his profile. There it was in the phrasing: “I have some work which I thing you will find interesting”. That was echoing the hint from the top of this profile: “always looking for something interesting”. It was true he didn’t look as actively as he once had, but he was still looking, in a passive sort of way. And then there was the follow-up phrasing “would suit someone with your experience” and then listing some obscure programming languages which he certainly knew but hadn’t used for years. He was confident, without looking that they were mentioned somewhere in the long list of assignments which formed his online resume. Someone had actually read what was on his profile and seemed to have taken some time to write an invitation which he would find enticing. Well, there was no point fighting it. He was enticed!

 (Part of the “Tyson” project: 2^nd January 2017 – 514 words)

Years, Months, Days

This is intended as an exercise in “stream of consciousness”. It isn’t thought out. Don’t take it seriously!

One of the things which interests me is how the language and symbols we use can affect the way we think. This is sometimes known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis (though really that is a misnomer).

At this time of the year we quite often use language which refers to the “beginning” and “end of” the year. There is a lot of “looking back” and “looking forward”. References to the Roman god “Janus”, who was the god of doorways among other things, are appropriate.

The thing is, a circle has no beginning and no end (and I know that the Earth’s orbit round the Sun is not circular, rather it is elliptical). Any beginning or end we choose is arbitrary. Western European convention just happens to have chosen a date which is close to the Winter Solstice, and we happen to have given a particular importance to years.

There are calendar systems which are more lunar than solar. They emphasise the months rather than the years, and as we all know months do not fit neatly into years.

Worse than that, days do not fit properly into either months or years. That is what the leap-years (and leap other things too) are all about. The underlying problem is that days, months and years are actually independent of one another, but humans like to join them together, and if at all possible we like to do the joining in a regular way.

One of the products of the French Revolution was the so-called “Republican Calendar”. The Republican Calendar attempted to make the months days and years “line up” neatly. It also tried to force things to be decimal. The result was complicated, though it did give some rather poetic names to things. It didn’t catch on at all. In fact the only reference to it that I can think of in the modern world is the dish “Lobster Thermidor”.

 (1^st January 2017 – 317 words)