{"id":6393,"date":"2021-04-17T10:47:58","date_gmt":"2021-04-17T10:47:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/?p=6393"},"modified":"2021-04-18T00:36:49","modified_gmt":"2021-04-18T00:36:49","slug":"mini-break","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/17\/mini-break\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini break"},"content":{"rendered":"

Up in Auckland for a conference, on anaesthesia and the brain.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t remember the last in-person conference I went to but I think it would have been in 2019.<\/p>\n

Flew up after work on Friday and spent the evening catching up with family. We went to see the live recording of a TV show called The Project. I\u2019ve never been part of a \u201clive studio audience\u201d. It was great fun! And free!<\/p>\n

I\u2019d never heard of the show before, it sounded to me like a reality show about building houses or something similar, but it\u2019s actually a current events\/magazine\/light news type program. (I\u2019m sure there\u2019s a name for that style of thing.) It\u2019s on at 7pm on channel 3, at the same time as 7 sharp on a TVNZ channel.<\/p>\n

There are two male and two female hosts (anchors?), three of whom I recognized. The most famous is Jessie Mulligan, who also hosts a show on Radio NZ in the afternoons. He has a lovely voice, warm and charming but more Dad-like than too smooth or unctuous. Also easy on the eye if I may say so. Everyone wore serious, formal, business like attire, although the two men wore shorts underneath – not visible behind the desk on the set. I guess it gets hot under those lights?<\/p>\n

Most of the show is prerecorded, but there were live bits in between where we had to clap and whistle (although not while they were talking). There were also live interviews and cuts to crew members around the country at various events.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Show biz!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you were watching, I was the one with the shiny face and messy hair in the back row.<\/p>\n

A bonus for going to the show is that you get a discount if you have dinner at one of the local eateries. We went to an Italian place that was lovely, Al Volo, where we were served by the most hopeless waiter I\u2019ve ever had in my life. He was pleasant enough, but he seemed to have absolutely no idea what was going on. He was certainly completely unfamiliar with the menu. \u201cWhat sort of beers do you have?\u201d \u201cWell, one is in a green bottle, and the other is blue\u201d. \u201cWhat\u2019s stracciatella?\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve never heard of it\u201d \u201cbut it\u2019s in that pasta dish!\u201d \u201cIs it?\u201d. \u201cWhat gelato do you have?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s a kind of ice cream\u201d \u201cYes, but what sorts?\u201d \u201cIt comes in flavours\u201d \u201cwhich are?\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d. \u00a0He also just didn\u2019t seem to grasp the basic functions of hospo. My sister ordered her main, and he then started to walk away. I asked, hurriedly if I could order too? Which I did, \u00a0\u201cAnyone else?\u201d He says, as if my two nephews might have decided not to eat, having come out to dinner with us. \u00a0I shouldn\u2019t complain, though, because after the discount was applied, the entire bill was embarrassingly small. Plus, we all know what a hard time restaurants have had over the last year. And the food was really good!<\/p>\n

The conference was a solid ten hours today, which I thought I\u2019d struggle to last through, but actually I was fine. Perhaps it was the novelty value of being at a conference in person. During the first couple of talks, some people were having a quiet chat a few rows behind us, and several phones nearby were making various beeps and chirps that were quite irritating, I felt righteously indignant. But then my phone started to ring loudly! I couldn\u2019t believe it at first, as I thought I\u2019d switched it to silent, and that was then followed by a desperate scrabbling through my belongings to find it and turn it off. I was mortified, but when I apologized to the speaker later, she said she hadn\u2019t heard it. The next talk did start with a reminder to turn our phones to silent, though, which made me shrink down in my seat.<\/p>\n

One of the local speakers looked strangely familiar, but it wasn\u2019t until his second talk that I figured out why – he looked and spoke exactly like Baldrick \u00a0from Blackadder (now I\u2019m showing my age). I might be doing some research with him in the coming months, I\u2019ll have to make sure I never get drunk around him or I\u2019ll end up telling him of the resemblance. He\u2019s about my vintage, though, so surely he must realize it?? I hope I never end up asking him if he has a cunning plan.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Baldrick throughout the ages<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had three overseas speakers, a German professor, and two Australian research doctors, one currently based in New York. They all had prerecorded talks, but the two Australians also zoomed in for a live panel discussion, which worked surprisingly well. I guess that sort of technology has advanced hugely in the last year. The woman who was based in New York had very harrowing stories to tell about what it\u2019s been like living and working there in the plague times. I am so incredibly glad we managed to keep COVID from spreading here. It\u2019s an awful disease, and we\u2019re only just coming to grips with the long term stuff. It\u2019s bad. Get vaccinated.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Home tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Up in Auckland for a conference, on anaesthesia and the brain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-1F7","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11082,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/30\/florence-30-october\/","url_meta":{"origin":6393,"position":0},"title":"Florence 30 October","author":"Interloper11","date":"October 30, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Spent all day at the conference. I woke up bizarrely early ahead of my alarm so I made it to the first talk even though I wasn\u2019t particularly interested in it. I\u2019d booked myself onto a workshop to learn more about brain wave monitoring, it\u2019s something I use in theatre\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_0818-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2374,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/05\/18\/ooh-thats-smashing\/","url_meta":{"origin":6393,"position":1},"title":"Ooh that\u2019s smashing!","author":"Interloper11","date":"May 18, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"So my cold turns out to have been a flash in the pan, which is good because we had a weekend in Dunedin booked. We are down to visit the twins who are freshers in the infamous Selwyn hostel. Unbeknownst to us when we arranged to come down, \u00a0it\u2019s actually\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3374,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2019\/09\/29\/everybody-loves-saturday-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":6393,"position":2},"title":"Everybody loves Saturday night","author":"Interloper11","date":"September 29, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a busy time last night. First up was a birthday party out in the suburbs. Had a very interesting drunken conversation with a couple of other middle class, middle aged ladies, reminiscing about youthful misadventures with drugs whilst at the same time bemoaning similar behaviour in our own\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":819,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/25\/nyet\/","url_meta":{"origin":6393,"position":3},"title":"Nyet","author":"Interloper11","date":"October 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Russians all looking a bit the worse for wear at the course this morning. Apparently they kicked on after I left last night. No surprises there. When the\u00a0professeur heard this, he mentioned that the first time he was in Moscow, he ended up drinking seven or eight vodkas on\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11059,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/10\/28\/florence-27-october\/","url_meta":{"origin":6393,"position":4},"title":"Florence 27 October","author":"Interloper11","date":"October 28, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Feeling a little glum this morning, consumed with thoughts of death. It\u2019s not just the passing of my uncle that\u2019s put me in this morbid frame of mind, nor the death of my brother\u2019s dog, nor that of one of the lead characters in my book. It\u2019s Europe itself. It\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_0729-300x225.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":543,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/06\/present\/","url_meta":{"origin":6393,"position":5},"title":"Present!","author":"Interloper11","date":"October 6, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A photo just to show that I was at the conference I said I was at. That\u2019s me on the right in front of the lady chewing her fingernails. Not sure what was being presented here but it was obviously enthralling.","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/3A5F86DE-7BE4-4C14-886A-B90E6D45CEC3-169x300.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}