sawyl | A moment of disconnection (Reply)

We had an internal seminar today. Despite being made up largely of the usual crowd, I noticed an oddity about halfway through: I was the only person wearing a sweatshirt. Everyone else had opted for shirts, whereas I'd gone for my trademark two-colour sweater (I don't always wear them — at Christmas I substituted my usual for a baseball jersey and found that people kept on telling me that I'd lost weight!)

Combined with my current feeling of febrile detachment — I really struggled with my usual distance at the pool yesterday and, a couple of hours later, I developed a nasty headache and a maybe/maybe-not sore throat — I suddenly felt as though I'd been switched into a parallel reality where everyone had been replaced by shirt wearing dopples. Then, after a few seconds, everything snapped back into focus and I was back with the programme.

I would blame the subject matter for my lapse in concentration, but the seminar was actually rather good. If nothing else, it was a big improvement on a similar seminar we held back in November 2002 in Bracknell. That lasted three painful days with a strong thread mutual incomprehension running through all the discussions. Worse still, despite having worn a shirt, I was completely out-classed by a power-dressing