Tuesday, February 10

Today, Naa has her English oral examination and so we got up very early indeed. We got up at 6:30. This will turn out to have the hottest day of the year so far. The temperature will rise to over 7 degrees.

I got to work very early indeed and made a cup of tea. I sat down to use the time wisely and as soon as I opened my laptop there was a power cut. Looking out the window I could see the traffic lights were off, and wandering down the corridor I could see that Prakticum was dark, as were the apartments next to Arcada. The power cut apparently affecting a wide area of Helsinki and lasted almost an hour. Once it was over it took several hours for Arcada’s online services to gradually come back online.

At 9:00 I had a very fruitful meeting about Lynda.com and MOOCs in which Mervi suggested a way that we might get Lynda licences. At 12:00 I had a Nobanet meeting in which everyone was very happy with what I reported and Eija suggested that I might wish to attend the SPACE conference in Poland in April as a Nobanet delegate. She also suggested that I might like to present a paper or a pecha kucha, which would count as published research.

At 13:15 I gave the Social Gaming students their major assignment because Liisa (who was going to do it) was still ill. They asked very few questions and then left to begin work. They have forty eight hours to produce a game concept to a strict brief, and prepare to pitch it.

Now I have received a surprise email from Brendan Jackson asking me to identify this photograph.

Flashback! Meanwhile, thirty years ago, in a basement in the Midlands…

The answer, history fans, is that the photograph was taken in 1985. It shows me leading a workshop at Jubilee Arts in Dudly, in West Bromwich. The workshop was about making music with midi, with specific reference to an Atari ST software called (if I remember correctly) either Composer or Creator. I assume that the photo was taken by Brendan, who has been known to take a photo or two.

Soon I will meet Erik at his hotel, the Radisson Blu Plaza in the centre of Helsinki. We will intend simply to meet, have a beer and agree a plan for tomorrow. Instead we will spend about three hours working and both of us will leave with pages of notes and much of what we had intended to do tomorrow already done. We will do this downstairs in Stones in Keskikatu, which is expensive but very quiet.

I will get home in time to say goodnight to Naa who will be reluctant to say that the exam went well, but prepared to admit that it did not go that badly.