Reasons To Be Happy

While I was on my travels, the university bought a content management system. Like all content management systems it promised to make publishing web pages easy for a lot of people in a large and growing organisation. If the users can publish their own content in templates maintained by the experts, with access rights set by the administrators, with content available for repeated use, things should become more efficient. They are particularly good, so they say, at dealing with content of a similar structure, and content managment systems, the received wisdom goes, are the natural next step for large websites. As usual received wisdom generally serves the market. Content management systems, while not exactly the Emperor's new clothes, are probably his shoes. And they walk all over me.

On the plus side, all that money spent on a complicating engine, did also cover a training trip to London for myself and other relevant parties. In all sincerity this training was essential. Mangling the beautiful simplicity of the web to fit it into an awkward, ambling mechanical creature, requires instructing the monster's keeper in its maintenance, upkeep and cultivation. The training course was full and intensive. The longer it went on the more afraid of the creature I became, but I was chained to it now. I had to make a truce. I had to swallow my apprehension and just accept my new station in life. With the system not yet installed, I still fear the day when it breaks its chains and runs rampant over the countryside. On this occasion I can't even proclaim in misery, 'I have created a monster!' I am just its keeper. Doctor Frankenstein has left the building.

But to return to the plus side; London! I love that city more and more the more often I go there. I have already indicated some of the events of the week; meeting Will, chatting with Sian, dining with Seb. Staying at the top of Regent's Street, Chinatown, Soho, Piccadilly, Charing Cross Road (and the bookshops!), the Westend, and even the South Bank were all easily within walking distance. The food was good and the drink filling. I tend to sup on ale when I go to England, though the English preference for warm beer mystifies me. Anyhow with the possible exception of the night I met Will (how else did I knock over that chair in the Gourmet Burger Kitchen), I kept the alcohol under control. By the way that pesto burger was lovely and the blue cheese sauce with the chips was delicious.

Anyhow the training ended on the Friday and I was to stay until Sunday evening. There was only one thing to do. The Tate!