Theo's guitar pierces him because it also carries a reprimand, a reminder of buried dissatisfaction in his own life, of the missing element. This feeling can grow when a set is over, when the consultant neurosurgeon makes his affectionate farewells to Theo and his friends and, emerging on the pavement, decides to go home on foot and reflect. There's nothing in his own life that contains this inventiveness, this style of being free. The music speaks to unexpressed longing or frustration, a sense that he's denied himself an open road, the life of the heart celebrated in the songs. There has to be more life than merely saving lives. The discipline and responsibility of a medical career, compounded by starting a family in his mid-twenties - and over much of it, a veil of fatigue; he's still young enough to yearn for the unpredictable and unrestrained, and old enough to know the chances are narrowing. Is he about to become that man, that modern fool of a certain age, who finds himself pausing by shop windows to stare in at the saxophones or the motorbikes or driven to find himself a mistress of his daughter's age? He's already bought himself an expensive car. Theo's playing carries this burden of regret into his father's heart. It is, after all, the blues.

- Ian McEwan, Saturday

It's amazing how McEwan manages to introduce this piercing insight so elegantly. In one passage, how many unfinished lives described, how many miles of open roads imagined but never traveled?

... is never more apparent than when you are an interior designer asking your clients what their ideal masturbate room is like.

Yes, the male mind works in grand mysterious ways.

Gathering Storm Hosted on Zooomr

Never, ever, visit a high profile exhibition on its second last day. You queue for tickets, jostle for standing space and basically get poked and shoved as if you were in a recreation of a Greek market. Publicized as a Big Deal because the famed Parisian museum seldom loans out more than a dozen of its pieces at a time, the exhibition does justice to the masterpieces in most ways except one. The psychedelic neon purple lighting in the final section of the exhibition, whether intentionally or not, bestows a otherworldly feel (which I normally associate with Aliens or Halo) to the otherwise classical statues. I would have preferred to view them at least in low ambient yellow lighting if not in a large and airy natural setting. Pity.

The Discus Thrower Hosted on Zooomr

We need a witness to our lives. There's a billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness'."

Susan Sarandon, Shall We Dance?

Rose, Swirls Hosted on Zooomr

Sentinels Hosted on Zooomr

A farewell email from an ex-colleague:

Hi Team,

As many of you may probably know, today is my last day here. From next Monday, I’ll be slaving away somewhere else so before I actually step out of here, I want to take this opportunity to thank everyone for making my time here memorable:

Person 1:...
Person 2:...
..
To Wenjie:
Thanks for all your help with my coding, the rebuilding of server builds, running my db scripts and the other stuff. I'll be missing the whining sessions we have on the bus trips to and from work. All the best with your new house and clearing your 0.5 million dollar debt.

Now every colleague and his father, mother and brother knows my secret, thereby thoroughly shredding my carefully cultivated strong and silent image to bits faster then a master chef can slice and dice an onion.

Owned, so owned.

Skyport Hosted on Zooomr

Dig the space shuttle ceilings, thumbs down for the drab arrival hall. And sealing off transit and checked in areas to the public? So not cool.