In a rare burst of enthusiasm I have signed up for a ten-week Harvard University distance learning course in the history and theory of architecture.
It requires a commitment of three to five hours a week and comprises videos, online tests, rudimentary design and some model-making.
My reasoning is that I often commit that much time a week to watching a TV box set while sitting slumped on a settee with a bowl of crisps, so why not do something more worthwhile instead?
Another motivation is the realisation, stronger with every year, that I have so much to learn.
My ignorance is fathomless. First there is the random stuff everyone else seems to have ingested with their mother’s milk: classical mythology, rudimentary philosophy, Tudor history, the workings of the internal combustion engine. Then there is more modern knowledge that still eludes me, despite having spent half my working life on a computer: coding, Excel spreadsheets, how to get all my electronic devices to be nice to one another.
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There comes a point when you want to fill in some of the gaps. Even if, given the state of my memory, it turns out to be as futile as shovelling sand with a garden fork.
Why architecture? My brother is an architect and his job has fascinated me for 30 years. No other discipline, to my mind, covers so much ground. Pun intended.
Architects have to be engineers, artists, planners, sociologists, brickies, historians, entrepreneurs, environmentalists and politicians. They have to possess a deep understanding of people, both as individuals and as a society.
As an added bonus my brother, who also works as a university tutor for architecture students, has offered to crit my elementary designs.
I’m just a few weeks in and, I have to admit, some of the architectural theory has been challenging. I find myself frequently scrolling back in lectures. What did Professor K Michael Hays just say about “architecture as a mode of thought”? OK, got it. Now, what does that mean?
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Yet so far I am undaunted. I’m in this for the long haul. Just don’t tell me about the latest must-see box set on Sky Atlantic or documentary on BBC Four. For the next few weeks I’m busy.
Ice age worries
I hope we have seen the last of the snow for a while. The first flurries were fun and the crump of boot in 4in of fresh fall is always satisfying. However, for those of us with elderly relatives it is a worrying time.
Even though I tell my mother to stay indoors when there is snow on the ground, later the same day she will phone to say that she has been to the hairdresser or paid a visit to a relative. Ice holds no fear for her.
I, on the other hand, worry that the state of the roads will prevent me driving from Edinburgh to Dundee to visit her.
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I read with alarm last week about motorists stuck in a blizzard on the M74, reminiscent of that time in 2010 when hundreds were trapped overnight on the M8. My idea of hell.
Social media last week was full of people’s contempt for the M74 motorists, who had ignored police advice to stay at home unless their journey was absolutely necessary.
Is it really too much to hope that motorways, at least, can be kept open in all weather conditions?
Farewell, dear friend
I sold a couple of old cameras last week to raise cash for a new purchase and ever since I have been beset by what is, for me, a new sensation.
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I fear that I will come to regret selling that old Sony that was built like a tank and worked so well in spots as far afield as Palestine, Hong Kong and Leith.
I have seller’s remorse.